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Prayer

Between

Friends

Cultivating our
friendship with God

.991

Earl E Palmer

JUK

0 1 mh

V v V

BV210.2 . P23 1991
Palmer, Earl F.

Prayer between friends :
cultivating our friendship
with God.

PRAYER

BETWEEN

FRIENDS

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2018 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library

https://archive.org/details/prayerbetweenfriOOunse

Prayer

Between

Friends

Cultivating our
friendship with God

Earl F. Palmer

REGENT COLLEGE PUBLISHING

• VANCOUVER, CANADA •

Prayer Between Friends
Copyright ©1991 by Earl F. Palmer

First published in 1991 by Fleming H. Revell Company
Tarrytown, New York U.S.A. 10591

Reprinted 1999 by Regent College Publishing

an imprint of the Regent College Bookstore

5800 University Boulevard, Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 2E4

E-mail: bookstore@regent-college.edu;

Website: www.regent-bookstore.com

The views expressed in works published by Regent College Publishing are
those of the author and may not necessarily represent the official position of
Regent College.

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior writ¬
ten permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embod¬
ied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations contained herein
are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted, 1989
by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by per¬
mission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified kjv are from the King James Version
of the Bible

Scripture quotations contained herein identified RSV are from the
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyrighted ©1946, 1952, 1971,
by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by per¬
mission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palmer, Earl F.

Prayer between friends / Earl F. Palmer
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-57383-149-2

1. Prayer. 2. Bible. O.T. Psalms— Prayers. 3. Bible. O.T.

Job — Prayers. 4. Lords prayer. I. Title.

the Wednesday-morning prayer group:

Bob, Wilbur, Blondie, Roger, Allen, Henry,
Russell, Steve, Darrell, Francois, Al, Minor,
Ted, Bill, Richard, Lou, Mark, John, Kurt,
Rene, Jan, Dick, Jim, Russ, Bob, and Walter

Contents

Preface 9

Introduction 11

Part I: Communication With Our
Greatest Friend — God

1 Do I Dare Disturb God? 19

2 The Language of Love 31

3 The Language of Relationship 39

Part II: The Nature of the
Friendship

4 The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives 47

5 Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival 61

6 Who Is There When We Pray? 73

7 The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in

the Book of Job 83

8 Surprised by Hope: Job, a Book of Prayer 97

Contents

Part III: Praying in Jesus’ Name

9 Teach Us to Pray 111

10 Thy Kingdom, Lord 121

11 One Day at a Time 127

12 Forgiveness 135

13 Total Help for Total Need 145

14 Kingdom, Power, and Glory 157

15 Daily Prayer 169

16 Between Friends 177

17 And Finally . . . 185

Source Notes 189

Preface

Prayer is a lifelong part of the Christian life. The
youngest children know how to do it, because prayer is
easy to learn. When we are old, we seek God even more,
because our experiences with the Lord of time have en¬
riched the meaning of prayer.

We pray when we need help, when we grieve, when we
rejoice; we pray when we are afraid, and when we are
thankful. Like our relationships with people, our prayers
journey with us throughout all of our life, and they be¬
come inseparable from the history of that journey.

I hope that the Old Testament and New Testament
explorations in these pages will focus our minds and
steady our hearts so that we may pray knowing the One
who invites not only our prayers but our friendship.

I am grateful to God for people in my own life who have
taught me the meanings and the experiences of prayer:
Ralph Byron, Persis Sueltz, Henrietta Mears, Thelma

Preface

Enkema, Bill Brown, Helen Vaughn, Eunice and Henry
Gertmanian, Vera Kerr, Cathie Nicoll, and Kay Mac¬
Donald; my family, Shirley, Anne, Jon, and Elizabeth;
and especially, three prayer groups in my life — the Orig¬
inal Twelve at Princeton, the Monday pastor's support
group, and the Wednesday-morning group.

Introduction

I am convinced that, just like friendship, prayer is for
amateurs. A friendship is not a professional skill in which
a college gives degrees and certificates; prayer shares the
same informal and nontechnical nature.

Friendship has ceremonial events, like the time when
a close friend asks another to stand at a marriage cer¬
emony as best man, maid of honor, or an attendant.
But these formal occasions only happen because at a
very personal level a profound unity of acknowledg¬
ment and shared joy already exists between the two
people.

The Bible describes the formal acknowledgment of
friendship between God and people as a covenant or
promise; fundamentally that relationship really has
nothing to do with ceremony, though ceremonies and
public events may be used to make the promise visible or
may be celebrated to honor the existence of the covenant.

Introduction

The friendship already exists by the time the ceremony
takes place.

Prayer is the language of that friendship with God, and
my goal in this book is for us to dialogue on the meanings
of prayer as that language. Within the journey of faith,
people of all ages and of every kind of theological opinion
feel concerned about the meanings of prayer. Because
friendship with Almighty God involves a mystery and a
profound wonder of grace, these concerns are often quite
complicated.

Some of the most painful human experiences have to
do with personal loneliness, and these concerns have at
their core, I believe, a yearning for friendship with God.
We ask, “How can I know that God really cares about my
life when I don’t feel the presence of his love?” In very
practical terms spiritual loneliness must finally focus
upon the possibility and reality of prayer so that we have
permission to go to God with our deepest feelings.

Questions about prayer come up almost every day, in
one way or another, especially from students in the uni¬
versity city where I serve as a pastor. I am often asked,
“How can I know what God’s will is for my life?” This is
at least 50 percent a question about prayer. Others ask
related questions, like, “Do I need to go to church to know
God?” A variety of queries sooner or later become ques¬
tions about prayer.

Many people find prayer a confusing word and idea. For
some it is primarily a religious procedure that they must
surround by the careful trappings of a formal religious
setting. But I don’t agree at all with this type of limita¬
tion. Most certainly we wouldn’t let this kind of thinking
affect our relationships with other people, yet for some
strange reason many of us at times depend on religious
practices to characterize our friendship with God.

Introduction

Others view prayer as a means of power and authority.
They see prayer as a religious transaction involving re¬
quests made of God. Consequently, these folk see prayer
as a skill to be learned and mastered. Their understand¬
ing produces students of the art of prayer, who attend
seminars on prayer methods, as if praying were an art
form in which the key element was related to our ability
at timing and technique.

The Bible includes prayers that result from the rela¬
tionship between ordinary people like us and God. We
will explore the greatest mystery about prayer — the
truth that prayer has more to do with God’s character
than with our methods and techniques. That mystery is
hidden in the promise of Jesus Christ to his disciples,
when he invited them and ordinary people in all of time
to ask what they will in Jesus’ name.

In the “in his name” instruction we discover the deep¬
est mystery of prayer, which allows us to blurt out our
concerns to the One who is our best Friend. The good
news is that we need no special training in “blurting
out.” No rituals or ceremonies qualify us to pray. So let
us now begin our quest into the meaning of our own
experiences of prayer. Part of our task in this venture
will be to unlearn some of our earlier misconceptions so
that we become free to simply ask and experience the
friendship that makes our prayers possible.

between

Part I

Communication With
Our Greatest
Friend — God

Do I Dare Disturb God?

A student at Harvard wrote a masterful poem, telling
the story of a man who wonders what his life is all about.
One mark of that character’s depleted sense of self-worth
is his inability to pray or to even consider that his prayers
matter at all. Two lines especially express his feelings:
“Do I dare Disturb the universe?”1

Actually, the question T. S. Eliot’s character expressed
in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was also the
question of the author, a young agnostic. After Eliot dis¬
covered the reality of Jesus Christ, he came to a whole
new understanding of prayer. Later works, Murder in the
Cathedral and Journey of the Magi , became the artistic
and theological answers to the questions he asked in
“Prufrock.” The tentative and incomplete prayers in Eli¬
ot’s first poems are replaced by a profoundly integrated
whole understanding of prayer, reflected in every part of
his later works.

Prayer — Between Friends

Dare We Disturb the Universe? At some time
we all ask Eliot's question about the very possibility
of prayer: “Do I dare disturb?” Unambiguously, exul¬
tantly, and thoughtfully, the Bible affirms, “Yes, we can
disturb the universe by our questions of the universe’s
Creator.” But the Scripture goes even further as it pro¬
claims that the One who created the human ear is able
to hear us when we speak. The One who made us able
to think, feel, care, and hope also thinks, feels, cares,
and makes hope a possibility. The mystery of our free¬
dom that enables these possibilities is united with the
mystery of God’s freedom. God is the ultimate source
before all sources, and the ultimate wonder prior to all
other wonders is that God is knowable by mere human
beings. That knowability makes prayer both exciting
and important.

Prayer is the word that describes our personal expe¬
rience of God. As men and women who live in time and
space we can know God as he makes himself known to
us, and this is profound, good news. Yes, there is a re¬
lationship between us and the God who made us and
who loves us.

Toward Understanding Prayer

Merely admitting that God does listen and that we
need to pray does not answer all our questions concern¬
ing this glorious relationship with the Creator. A couple
of incidents from my own life show forth two difficulties
in our understanding of prayer.

Shortly after I graduated from theological seminary, I
was assigned, as a young pastor, to speak to the youth
section of a week-long conference at Mt. Hermon Chris¬
tian Conference Center in California. The principal

Do I Dare Disturb God?

speaker during that week was Dr. Donald Grey Barn-
house, a brilliant biblical preacher and teacher, who
pastored Tenth Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia.

One afternoon, during a question-and-answer session,
Dr. Barnhouse was asked, “Do you feel that our prayers
change anything?”

His answer was swift and electrifying: “Our prayers
only change us. They don’t change God. And they don’t
change God’s decisions about history.”

Dr. Barnhouse then explained that in his opinion
prayer is in its essence and totality the act of our per¬
sonal submission to God’s authority and of our grateful
trust in the faithful love of God. He pointed out that
prayer is no more than that, and to claim more on our
part only shows we misunderstand the sovereign right of
God over history. He asserted that God’s character does
not change to meet our prayer requests, nor do his deci¬
sions. We are the ones who change, and that is the good
result of prayer as we bring ourselves into the presence of
the Lord.

Dr. Barnhouse’s tight and logical reasoning im¬
pressed me, but I still felt uneasy. The problem with his
answer is that this teaching interprets the character of
God — which Dr. Barnhouse saw as at the heart of
Christian prayer — as rigid and immovable. It seemed to
me then that this interpretation only captured part of
the whole truth.

My uneasiness with the answer made me determined
to look more closely at what the Bible teaches about the
mystery and the meaning and the practice of prayer. Now
I look back to that week with gratitude, for like a good
teacher, Dr. Barnhouse had forced me to study the bibli¬
cal texts that are the final authoritative source for every
doctrine and promise.

Prayer — Between Friends

Not long after this event, a challenge from almost the
opposite direction confronted me. At the time I was
minister to students at the University Presbyterian
Church in Seattle, Washington. A fellow pastor invited
me to have lunch with him, and we talked about the
world crisis and the needs of youth for the gospel. I felt
our discussion was being too carefully guided by my
host, and the point of his careful conversation finally
became clear when he asked, “Earl, do you have as
much power in your life and in your prayers as you
wish you had?” I answered truthfully and told my
friend that I usually felt inadequate to meet the chal¬
lenge of my calling.

“Earl,” he asked, “do you have in your life the gifts of
the Holy Spirit? Especially do you have the gifts to make
prayer a power-filled experience in all of your life?” With¬
out awaiting my answer, he told me about some of his
intercessory prayer victories.

Warily I decided to answer his original questions from
the standpoint of the fellowship I belonged to and was
accountable to. I replied, “You should ask those who
know me best to answer those questions.”

Whereas Dr. Barnhouse had caused me to feel theolog¬
ical discomfort about the inflexibility of God’s faithful¬
ness, I now felt troubled at the prospect of the God who
could be manipulated by my devoted spirituality. This
emphasis on my personal experience of prayer and spir¬
ituality was too dynamic and too dependent on what was
happening in me. While the idea that prayer is only our
submission to the sovereignty of God seemed rigid and
incomplete, in the face of the biblical witness, these
lunchtime questions implicitly seemed to place too much
emphasis on my experience.

Do I Dare Disturb God?

Limiting or Attempting to Control God

These incidents typify the tensions we face as we seek
to understand prayer. Dr. Barnhouse’s interpretation
holds the danger of limiting our understanding of God,
because it contains speculative theological conclusions
about the implications of God’s sovereignty. This may
actually create an artificial and nonbiblical boundary
around prayer, which acts as a tight and final circle.
Because it may give us the idea that God will not
change anything as a result of our prayers, such theol¬
ogy downgrades the full possibilities of intercessory
prayer.

My fellow pastor’s portrayal of prayer moves in an op¬
posite direction, toward arrogance or even impudence.
The idea here is that our earnest prayers of agreement
and requests somehow compel or even control God.
Though we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we make both prom¬
ises and demands that attempt to limit God’s sovereignty
as we too tightly define what we believe is the way of his
love. Our assurance becomes directly related to what we
describe as answers to prayer instead of simple trust in
the faithful and good character of God.

Both possibilities are rooted in Christian conviction,
and both need to move toward a biblical higher ground, if
we are to build a healthy practice and understanding of
prayer. It seems to me that what we need is to give care¬
ful attention to the promises Scripture makes to us about
prayer. In looking at the biblical record, we will learn by
observation how the men and women of the Bible lived
and prayed. There we will find both good examples and
bad, for their stories are uneven, just as ours are.
Through them, though, we can learn much about God’s
faithfulness.

Prayer — Between Friends

Threats to Our Understanding of Prayer

More dangerous threats to our understanding of the
meaning of prayer exist than these two, which originate
from within the family of believers. For example, athe¬
ism claims that human prayer has no meaning, because
no ultimate Friend listens to our prayers. This claim, of
course, comes from people who have not met and trusted
Jesus of Nazareth. We don’t need to argue the “case for
prayer” with such critics. Rather, we seek to witness to
them and introduce them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Only
then can we appropriately press the matter further, be¬
cause, in reality, prayer is a vital part of our journey of
discovery as to who Jesus is.

An even more complicated threat in a sense arises from
a page torn out of the book of faith, as people have mis¬
read the biblical teachings and understandings of the
Bible about prayer. In their desire for spiritual and phys¬
ical power, they have separated “the power from the
promise.” The Book of Acts describes such a man, who
desired the power he witnessed in the life and actions of
the early Apostles. In an effort to acquire that power,
Simon attempted to buy it from Peter, saying, “ ‘Give me
also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands
may receive the Holy Spirit.’ ” Peter replied, “ ‘May your
silver perish with you, because you thought you could
obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share
in this, for your heart is not right before God’ ” (Acts
8:18-21).

Separation of “the power from the promise” is nothing
new. The Gnostics, who opposed the apostolic gospel in
the early church, attempted to acquire the power they
saw in the lives of the first-century Christians. But they
wanted power without obedience to the historical person

Do I Dare Disturb God?

and work of Jesus Christ. A Greek philosophical and
mythological worldview that exalted everything that
seemed “spiritual” had influenced the Gnostics, causing
them to despise and reject anything physical and con¬
crete; they were determined to arrange for a spiritual
escape from the physical world. This made them highly
selective about the parts of the New Testament they were
prepared to embrace. Completely rejecting the Old Tes¬
tament insistence upon concreteness and the insepara¬
bility of life as a whole experience of body, soul, and
spirit, the Gnostic movement attempted to redesign Je¬
sus into a spiritual force — a phantomlike Christ of spir¬
itual power who helped religious “experts” who had the
secret knowledge (gnosis) about spiritual truth, who en¬
abled them in their goal to become fully spiritualized.

Through the centuries, movements at the edges of the
Christian faith have believed and taught variations of
this highly spiritualistic Gnostic theme. In fact, many
theological debates in the second-century church cen¬
tered on the challenge to the New Testament gospel by
the Gnostic movements. A specific prayer ideology that
involved the symbolic significance of certain words and
ceremonies and the use of certain metals, gems, crystals,
and even the importance of spiritually receptive shapes
such as pyramids have characterized these movements.

Gnostic techniques sought to enable the one who mas¬
tered such special knowledge to become a channel of spir¬
itual energy and power. Most of the Gnostic movements
eventually believed and taught that deity resided in some
way within personhood and was available for use and
mastery if one could learn the secret methods of recovery.
First-century Gnosticism resulted in self-preoccupation
and an all-absorbing concentration on power.

This not-uncommon spiritual theme traces back to the

Prayer — Between Friends

oldest, most deceptive, and pervasive promise of the
tempter to Adam and Eve — spiritual and physical power
stemming from secret knowledge learned by an inner
and select few.

The Mystery of Prayer

Prayer, as we now see, is not so simple a matter after
all. It means different things to different people. But in
truth, when we think and feel together about prayer, we
are thinking and feeling at the very deepest level within
our personalities. The use of such a simple word as prayer
is very important to us and to our life journeys. Conse¬
quently, in our search for truth we need to ask the really
major questions and try to understand the answers as we
find them.

While prayer, in a certain sense, is a very simple per¬
sonal matter, it retains a profound mystery. One of my
favorite lines in A. A. Milne’s book When We Were Very
Young points to this. Little Christopher Robin, human
hero of the Winnie the Pooh books, is kneeling by his bed
before he goes to sleep. We are told to be quiet, “Hush!
Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying
his prayers.” Why should we hush? What is so special
about prayer that people whisper and tiptoe when they
stumble onto someone who is praying?

Actually, prayer’s mystery has little to do with our
feelings about it or the methods we use. But it has ev¬
erything to do with the wondrous meaning of prayer as a
possibility granted to human beings by God. In the most
fundamental sense, prayer is what happens when we
stand as human beings at the place of agreement with
God, our Friend. In other words, in our praying we lay
claim to the revealed character of God. We pray not in

Do I Dare Disturb God?

order to catch the attention of God but because he has
caught our attention. Our prayers do not create God’s
love for us or for those for whom we pray. Rather, we pray
because the truth that God has first loved us has dawned
on us.

God invites us to speak to him, and he listens when
we speak. Like the hymn writer of Psalm 100:5, we
claim the Lord’s revealed character. He prayed confi¬
dently, because “the Lord is good; his steadfast love en¬
dures forever, and his faithfulness lasts for all
generations.” When we pray in Jesus’ name, we make
the same claim. Our prayers are not dependent upon
our own earnestness or our own desperation or our own
efficient use of religious language. Because of God’s
prior love for us, which he concretely revealed in the
life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our
prayers have meaning. We claim that good decision of
God’s grace and faithfulness when we pray.

An Invitation to Friendship and Involvement

We not only claim God’s grace when we pray, we also
ask for things to happen — we make requests, and these,
too, are a part of the mystery of prayer.

First of all God has invited us into friendship with him.
Jesus was very clear about this in the promise he made to
his disciples in the upper room discourse (John 13-16).
Jesus firmly established the friendship factor by saying,
“ ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do
not call you servants any longer, because the servant
does not know what the master is doing; but I have called
you friends . . .’” (John 15:14, 15).

At the same time God invites us to participate in the
flow of history. What an astounding truth: Our prayers

Prayer — Between Friends

do in fact influence the course of history! Earlier in that
same conversation Jesus had said, “ ‘Very truly, I tell
you, the one who believes in me will also do the works
that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these,
because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you
ask in my name , so that the Father may he glorified in the
Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do if ”
(John 14:12-14, italics mine). All of this simply means
that as friends of God we have a decisive role, through
our prayers and our lives, in the events of history. Jesus
does not surrender his own authority to the prayers of his
disciples, but he invites them, as friends, to lay claim to
that good authority.

When I reflect on the promises about prayer that Je¬
sus gave his followers, I wonder about my own experi¬
ences of prayer in the morning, at meal times, and
before I go to sleep at night. I can’t help but wonder,
Are my prayers shaping history ? At the same time I
wonder if I realize the profound meanings of the mys¬
tery in the divine invitation Jesus gave when he said,
“ ‘Until now you have not asked for anything in my
name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be
complete’ ” (John 16:24).

This leads me to ask, “What is your experience in
prayer?” Do you have that awareness of divine appoint¬
ment? Can those who observe us find themselves whis¬
pering, “Hush, this person is praying”? It seems to me
that when that sense of “hush” dawns upon us, we are
ready to think together about the meaning and the
mystery of prayer. Let us begin our search with Bible in
hand as we closely watch the ways that the people in
the Bible pray. As we examine the writings in both the
Old and New Testaments — specifically the Psalms, the
Book of Job, and the Lord’s Prayer — we will take a

Do I Dare Disturb God?

prayer pilgrimage. Further, our pilgrimage will come
alive as we pray — as we learn by doing. For at heart,
prayer is not technique or gnosis or theory or power.
Rather, prayer is a language of relationship, and best of
all, it is the language used between friends.

The Language of Love

At the beginning of our prayer journey, we must try to
understand the ways that the language of prayer is used
within the Scriptures. The Bible is our faithful guidebook
for all of the questions about faith and life; it is also our
guidebook to the meaning of prayer. The men and women
portrayed in the Bible teach us on every page about who
God is and who we are. By their own experiences they
also teach us about discipleship, worship, and prayer. If
we want to understand the way people feel about any
subject, we must first attend to what they say; we must
listen closely to the words the writers of the Bible select
to express their feelings and thoughts and how they build
words into sentences.

In addition to overhearing what the people of the
Bible — our spiritual ancestors — say, wherever possible
we also want to carefully observe what they do. How do
they combine their language with their actions? When

Prayer — Between Friends

we notice this interrelationship, events and meanings
come together into a whole. The Bible helps us make both
of these observations because its narratives tell stories
about real people and what they experienced and how
they felt. As a part of its record, the Bible has also given
us some of their prayers. This makes it possible for us to
learn about prayer as the people of the biblical narratives
do it. We learn by watching their prayers, which happen
everywhere — in the temple, in a lonely cave, in private
places, in joyous fellowship gatherings, and on the cross.

The Bible records at least five kinds of prayer in the
Old Testament.

1. Words of Praise. Prayers of praise are called
the Hallel prayers. The most famous prayer word that is
used in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word hallal ,
which means “magnify, boast, shout.” This is a word of
excitement and joyous urgency. When “hallal” is com¬
bined with the holy name for God — “Yahweh” — it be¬
comes the Hebrew word hallelujah. We find “Hallelujah”
frequently in the Psalms, and it is translated in our Bi¬
bles as “Praise the Lord” ( see Psalm 113:1). Psalms 113-
118 are known as the Hallel, and Psalm 136 is the Great
Hallel.

The other Hebrew words in the Old Testament praise
vocabulary are not as familiar to those who speak West¬
ern languages, though each plays a key role in enabling
us to understand the feelings and thoughts of men and
women in the Old and New Testaments when they
thought of praise. Two words closely related in mood to
hallal are the Hebrew words shir , which means “sing,”
and psalm , which translates “song.” Like hallal , these
are joyous and explosive words. We see both in Psalm
137:4, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign

The Language of Love

land?” Shir is also used in Isaiah 42:10, “Sing to the Lord
a new song, his praise from the end of the earth! . .

2. Asking Prayer Words. Another group of
prayer words in the Old Testament might be designated
as the asking words. Most commonly translated “pray,”
they carry the sense of “ask, to request a favor.”

The three major Hebrew asking words are:

a. A tar , which in its root form carries the idea of
sacrifice. It is used in Genesis 25:21, “Isaac prayed to
the Lord for his wife. . . .”

b. Shaal means “to ask, beg” and is used 176 times
in the Old Testament. For example, in Psalm 122:6,
we read, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. . . .”

c. Hanan means “to present oneself acceptably in
order to ask a favor.” It appears in Jeremiah 3:21: “A
voice on the bare heights is heard, the plaintive
weeping of Israel’s children. . . .” Daniel uses it in
his great prayer: “ ‘. . . We do not present our sup¬
plications before you on the ground of our righteous¬
ness, but on the ground of your great mercies’ ”
(9:18).

These asking words are sometimes used in a negative
sense, too. Shaal is used that way in Psalm 78:18, “They
tested God in their heart by demanding the food they
craved.” Believing prayer asks of God, but not all askings
are prayers of faith.

3. Cries for Help. Some prayer words might be
labeled “cries for help.” One such powerful word is
shapak , which means “to pour out.” We find it in Lam¬
entations 2:19, “. . . Pour out your heart like water before
the presence of the Lord. . . .” We hear David use this

Prayer — Between Friends

word in Psalm 142:2, “I pour out my complaint before
him. . .

Another “cry for help” is the Hebrew word shaag ,
which literally means “roar.” This is the word used in
Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? [Literally, “Why are you so far from the words of my
roaring?”]” David also prays with this word in Psalm
38:8, “I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan [roar] be¬
cause of the tumult of my heart.” In both references, the
translators of the Revised Standard Version use the En¬
glish word “groan.” But the Hebrew is more accurately
translated by the stronger word “roar,” the same word
that is used for the roar of a lion in Old Testament texts.

The word shava , which means “to cry,” is also part of
this group of intense and deeply emotional words for
prayer. Psalm 22:5 uses it, “To you they cried, and were
saved. . . .”

Another word in this group, anach , means “to sigh.”
An example of its use is found in Lamentations 1:21,
“They heard how I was groaning with no one to comfort
me. . . .”

The most famous of these “cry for help” words is ho¬
sanna, which literally means “help, please.” It is used in
Psalm 118:25, “Save us we beseech you, O Lord! . . .”
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sun¬
day, the writer of John’s Gospel tells us that the crowd
cried, “Hosanna” — “Lord, help us, please.”

4. “Thinking Through” Prayer Words. Our Bi¬
ble also uses three words in intercessory prayer — the
“thinking things through” prayers. Chief among these is
pala , which means “to decide, assess, estimate, think
through.” This word is used eighty-four times in the Old
Testament and represents the intercessory act of pray-

The Language of Love

in g. English versions often translate it “intercession.” It
describes that intercessory thoughtfulness found in Sol¬
omon’s prayer found in 1 Kings 8:28, “Regard your ser¬
vant’s prayer and his plea. . . The Prophet used pala
to describe the Lord’s house as “a house of prayer” (Isa¬
iah 56:7).

A deliberate, sober thoughtfulness lies at the core of
this word. It represents the prayer of the mind that thinks
through an issue before God. The prayer of intercession
may be described as an intellectual work of careful con¬
sideration of human need and divine promise before God.

Another fascinating word in this group, haga , means
“to hum, reflect, meditate.” This is the word used in
Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the medi¬
tation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock
and my redeemer.” A related word, maskil , also means
“to think through.” This word is used as a title for several
Psalms, for example “A Maskil of Asaph” (Psalm 78).

These three words point up the intellectually dynamic
role of the person who prays. This kind of prayer not only
shouts out in praise or cries out in distress or makes
requests of God, it also decides and thinks through in
order to intercede in behalf of need. This is the prayer
that seeks to understand the will of God and to think
through a crisis with him. These are words of partner¬
ship, “Come now, let us argue it out [reason together]
says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18).

5. Prayer Words of Obedience and Faith. Then
there are the shema prayers, “Hear O Israel . . .” (Deuter¬
onomy 6:4). The shema prayers are very important, for
they express the obedience and faith of prayer. Two such
words are shachah and barak. In Genesis 22:5 Abraham
tells his servants, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and

Prayer — Between Friends

I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come
back to you.” The word translated “worship” is shoe hah,
“to bow.” The Hebrew word barak also means “to bow” and
is translated by the English word “bless,” “Bless the Lord,
O my soul . . .” (Psalm 103:1). It is interesting to note,
though, that when the word “bless” refers to a person, as
in Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man ...” (rsv), the word as her
is used, and this means to “find the right way.”

These obedience words represent the sense of awe and
worship that is a vital part of the Old Testament prayer
vocabulary. They signal to us that prayer is the submis¬
sion of our will to the kingly reign of God. In prayer, we
bow before him. We commit ourselves and our concerns
to his love, and then we trust in his grace and faithful¬
ness. This is what it means to pray in God’s holy name.

The Importance of Words and Their Usage

Remember that no lexical examination of a particular
word is ever complete in itself. Words are used in sen¬
tences by living people who do not carry dictionaries
around as they speak. Consequently, we must always
consider a word in the context of the whole sentence or
paragraph. By doing this we catch the real intention of
the writer’s word choice. I have therefore endeavored to
place each word into its biblical sentence, so that we feel
it as part of a larger whole.

Nevertheless, words are essential markers, and they
carry within them vital clues to the feeling level of the
people who use them. We need to study words in their
setting and culture, because no word ever is perfectly
translated with all of its intended meanings intact. Lin¬
guistic scholars readily agree that every word has a his¬
tory and an individual meaning within a language. While

The Language of Love

some overlap of meaning may exist, the idea may not be
precisely conveyed in another language. This lack of pre¬
cision makes biblical translation into our own language
such an important and never-ending task.

By briefly examining the prayer words found in the
Bible, we have explored the kinds of prayer that com¬
prised the experience of the ancient Hebrews. We may
also apply these to our own experience. When we pray,
we also sing, we ask, and we try to think carefully and
ponder the great truths upon which everything depends.
Finally, in prayer we also must trust in the One to whom
we have brought our prayers. This simply means that our
words express a living relationship. They involve a com¬
munication between friends as we earnestly try to un¬
derstand and seek to be understood.

The Language of Relationship

As a young Christian I had to unlearn the false but
widely held idea that the Old Testament records God’s
judgment, whereas the New Testament tells the good
news of God’s love.

Our study of Hebrew words of prayer shows us that the
God of grace is very much the God of the Old Testament.
God’s goodness and faithfulness stand behind all the lan¬
guage of approach that we tracked through the Old Tes¬
tament story. Throughout Scripture, grace and judgment
merge so completely that we cannot understand one with¬
out the other. The prayer language of the Bible knows
the God of judgment and justice who is at the very same
instant the God of kindness and forgiveness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: “We cannot hear
the last word until we have heard the next to the last
word.”1 With prayer we journey with our Judge and our
Redeemer, and the fact that the God of the Bible is both

Prayer — Between Friends

Judge and Savior makes a difference in the way we pray.
The One to whom we pray understands who we really
are. This total understanding is the personal significance
for us of the righteous judgment of the God of the Bible.
Like a great physician, this doctor really understands the
full extent of the health crisis we face. For that very
reason he is more useful to us than the one who has
misread the symptoms, even though the less-informed
doctor may have happier things to say to us.

I would rather hear the blunt and salty truth about
myself, if the one who speaks can also help me find an¬
swers. Only when no answers exist would I prefer to hear
only the happier words. In both the Old Testament and
New Testament we hear the language of grace and real¬
ism, of God’s truthful judgment and of his kindly salva¬
tion.

Now we move into the world of the New Testament
writers and speakers. As they express their teaching on
prayer, we observe how the deep strands of the Old Tes¬
tament prayer experience emerge through New Testa¬
ment Greek.

While the writers of the New Testament wrote in first-
century Greek, they thought in terms of the ancient and
deeply rooted Hebrew of the Old Testament. Interesting
proof of this pattern is found in the Greek words chosen
to express the meaning and life of prayer in the New
Testament. In order to understand this it will be helpful
to begin our study before the New Testament documents
were written and focus on an event that occurred around
100 b.c., in Alexandria, Egypt.

Coining a New Word

At this time a group of Jewish rabbis translated the
Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, because the majority

The Language of Relationship

of the Jews in Palestine and throughout the Mediterra¬
nean basin needed to have their Scriptures in the lan¬
guage commonly in use throughout the world. The Greek
text these scholars produced is known as the Septuagint
because, according to tradition, seventy rabbis became
involved in the work.

The Septuagint had a profound effect on the New Tes¬
tament Greek vocabulary. For example, the classical
Greek word for “pray” at that time, euchomai , literally
meant “to strike a bargain” with deity and described
making a religious vow or a request acceptable to the
gods of Greek mythology. This limited understanding
served the purpose well in places like Job 22:27 ( italics
mine), “You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and
you will pay your vows ,” and the translator of Malachi
1:14 also used euchomai , “Cursed be the cheat who has a
male in the flock and vows to give it . . .” ( italics mine).

But when the Septuagint rabbis wanted to more fully
translate the rich meaning of the Old Testament word for
“pray,” they had to coin a new word, proseuchomai. The
prefix pros means “to” or “toward.” Adding the prefix to
the classical word shifted the focus of the meaning away
from the act of praying toward the One to whom we pray.
In this way euchomai is reduced in status to the rank of
a mild synonym, except where it is used in its generic
sense of “vow.”

New Testament Usage. The New Testament writ¬
ers carefully followed the lead of the Septuagint rabbis.
For example, they used the classical term in Acts 18:18,
where Luke speaks of Paul cutting his hair because “he
was under a vow.” However, the word used overwhelm¬
ingly for “pray” in the New Testament is proseuchomai.
“Pray toward” is the intent of Jesus’ words in the Sermon

Prayer — Between Friends

on the Mount when he says, “ ‘When you are praying, do
not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they
think they will be heard because of their many words. Do
not be like them, for your Father knows what you need
before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in
heaven, hallowed be your name . . .’ ” (Matthew 6:7-9).

In addition other Greek words are joined together to
describe the same five kinds of prayer found in the Old
Testament vocabulary. First, there are the praise words.
Chara means “rejoice,” as in Paul’s instructions to the
Christians at Philippi, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again
I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). And eucharisteo ,
translated “thanksgiving,” is used when Paul says to the
Philippian Christians, “I thank my God every time I re¬
member you” (Philippians 1:3). This word has a robust,
songlike character to it, very much like the song words of
the Old Testament Hebrew.

Two asking words for prayer appear throughout the
New Testament. Aiteo means “to want something, to
ask.” This is the word Jesus gave to his disciples when he
said, “ ‘On that day you will ask in my name . . .’” (John
16:26). An even stronger verb, erotao , means to ask or
beg. This word was used by the Greek visitors who told
Philip, “ ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’ ” (John 12:21). Paul
used this word in the deeply moving prayer narrative
about his thorn in the flesh, “Three times I appealed to
the Lord about this ...” (2 Corinthians 12:8).

The Greek prayer word krazo literally means “to cry”
and conveys the idea of crying for help. The Apostle Paul
uses this word in writing to the Roman Christians, “. . .
When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Ro¬
mans 8:15, 16). And the same “Abba! Father!” cry re-

The Language of Relationship

echoes in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia
(Galatians 4:6).

The Greek prayer word proskuneo also strongly echoes
the Old Testament. It means “to bow” and is used in a
decisive way in the fourth Gospel, where it is translated
by the English word “worship”: “But the hour is coming,
and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such
as these to worship him” (John 4:23).

We’ll mention two more words that are used for prayer.
Epikaleo means “to call and express confession.” This ap¬
pears in the story of Ananias of Damascus, when the
Lord told him about Saul of Tarsus, who was on Straight
Street, waiting for deliverance from the blindness that
had struck him when the Lord spoke to him on the Da¬
mascus road. In response to the Lord’s instructions, Ana¬
nias said, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man,
how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem;
and here he has authority ... to bind all who invoke
[“who call upon,” epikaleo ] your name” (Acts 9:13, 14).
Finally, we have deomai, which is used to express specific
prayer requests. Paul uses this word in writing to the
Christians at Philippi, “Do not worry about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”
(Philippians 4:6).

As we observed in our examination of the Old Testa¬
ment prayer words, vocabulary has no life of its own,
apart from its use in sentences and paragraphs. If we are
to understand what prayer means in the Bible, we must
watch the words as they connect with life. When we see
people pray and when we listen closely to our Lord as he
teaches his followers about prayer, we will learn the

Prayer — Between Friends

meaning of prayer and understand it as the language of
our friendship with him.

Praying Toward the Lord

There remains one more part of the puzzle. To really un¬
derstand prayer, we must begin ourselves to pray toward
the Lord. When we are doing that, we will perceive with
greater clarity what we mean when we praise, when we
call for help, when we ask, when we think through human
concerns with God, and when we bow in worship —
accepting God’s will as we pray in Jesus’ name. In this
way, we will learn ourselves firsthand about praying to¬
ward the Lord as we actually do it.

Part II

The Nature of the
Friendship

The Prayer-Songs of Our

Lives

If you want to get to know me as a person better, one
of the very best ways is to hear the songs that have in¬
fluenced my life. In my childhood my father sang to
our family, songs that made me feel secure. I especially
remember “Bye Baby Bunting” and “Old Spinning
Wheel.” Hymns such as “Jesus Loves Me” and the
Christmas carols made a strong impression on my life
from the earliest days, before I was consciously a Chris¬
tian believer.

During my high-school years my favorite song was the
slow waltz “Dream,” because that was always the last one
played at our school dances. In college the brash and
boldly rhythmic big bands were my favorite. At this time
I also began a lifelong love affair with Broadway
musicals — I enjoyed music that told a story. Classical mu¬
sic became important to me while I was a student in col¬
lege. And Handel’s Messiah completely won me body and

Prayer — Between Friends

soul before I understood its profound biblical message. To¬
day my favorites include music by composers like Tchai¬
kovsky, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Beethoven,
Mozart, and Bach.

Now that my children are young adults, I can see that
my favorite music has become their music. Many of the
songs they call their own are the ones they learned from
their mother and me. Their music has become mine as
well. You can tell my story and the story of our family by
the songs and hymns that have traveled with us in good
times and hard times and all the average day-to-day
times in between.

Songs Tell a Story

Even as songs reveal part of the story of who people
are, they also tell the story of nations and civilizations.
This is certainly true in coming to a better understand¬
ing of the history of the United States. First came the
early songs sung by native Americans around village
campfires. Then followed the songs introduced by early
European colonists, songs that emerged through the
American Revolutionary War. These are followed by
songs that told the story of a growing and expanding
nation.

Our history is enriched by the spirituals sung by the
African-American slaves and by the antislavery songs
that spoke of deliverance. Songs and hymns emerged
through the great religious awakening — the revivals—
of the late 1800s. Patriotic songs of the First and Second
World Wars followed. The American scene comes to life
through jazz, the blues, cowboy melodies, country music,
and beloved gospel songs. Yes, we can learn a great deal

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

about ourselves and our heritage by listening to the mu¬
sic that has held our attention and given us feelings of joy
and well-being.

The Bible and Its Prayer-Songs

In a similar way, the people of our Bible — the Old and
New Testaments — were passionately influenced by the
prayer-songs, that were so much a part of their history.
The Book of Psalms, the prayer-song book of the Old
Testament, tells about God and his actions in human
history. In this magnificent collection we are able to par¬
ticipate in their hopes, their fears, their successes and
defeats.

Not only in the Book of Psalms do we find songs and
prayer-songs in Scripture. From the Book of Job to the
Book of Revelation — throughout our entire Bible, in
fact — we find grand songs and chorales and prayer-songs
of praise, hope, worry, complaint, and trust. In the objec¬
tive prayer-songs God has revealed himself and his char¬
acter.

A second group of prayer-songs are subjective. These
tell stories — sometimes joyous, other times stormy — of
our own journey of faith, of our personal reactions to
that journey, and of our personal experiences with God’s
character, as well as our experience with the world in
which we live. For example, Psalm 107 tells four short
stories about people who wandered around in the
desert, who were in prison, who were sick, and who
were caught in devastating storms. In each instance the
Psalmist writes that they “cried to the Lord in their
trouble, and he delivered them from their distress”
(Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28).

Prayer — Between Friends

A third group of prayer-songs are those of intercession:
“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul,” writes David in Psalm
25. “O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to
shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.” These
prayer-songs of request combine both objective and sub¬
jective feelings. Here David expressed his personal con¬
dition, “. . . I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles
of my heart . . .” (Psalm 25:16, 17). At the same time he
expressed his objective convictions about the character of
God: “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs
sinners in the way” (Psalm 25:8).

A fourth group of prayer-songs might be labeled the
songs of joy — the shouting songs. Here, too, we have a
response to the character of God. An example is found in
the opening words of Psalm 147, “Praise the Lord! How
good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious,
and a song of praise is fitting.”

In vivid contrast to these are the grieving prayer-
songs, or those of lamentation — the uncomfortable and
angry-sounding prayer-songs of the Old Testament. A
striking example of these is found in Psalm 137, “By
the rivers of Babylon — there we sat down and there we
wept when we remembered Zion. . . . For there our cap-
tors asked us for songs . . . , ‘Sing us one of the songs of
Zion!’ How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign
land?”

There are also the hosanna prayer-songs, literally the
“help, please,” the “cry for help” songs. David writes,
“Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by
your might. Hear my prayer, O God. . . . For the insolent
have risen against me, the ruthless seek my life; they do
not set God before them” (Psalm 54:1-3).

Finally, there are the prayer-songs of meditation, the
haga prayers, the songs of humming. Here, we hum over

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

in our heads and hearts the great themes of God’s char¬
acter. A magnificent haga prayer-song finds expression
in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want. . . .”

It is important to note that within the New Testa¬
ment writings the most-quoted Old Testament selec¬
tions are the prayer poetry of the Book of Psalms. These
quotations become fundamental building blocks in New
Testament teaching. The messianic claims of Jesus are
founded upon the words of the psalmic prayer-songs as
much as upon the writings of law and prophecy.

For example, in Matthew 21 we have the narrative of
our Lord in a tense moment when his messiahship was
severely contested. Contained in this moving scene is one
of the most important theological speeches Jesus ever
gave — a discourse carefully built upon quotations from
the Psalms. Here Jesus said, “ ‘Have you never read in
the scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has
become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it
is amazing in our eyes”?’ ” (Matthew 21:42).

Here Jesus utilized words from Psalm 118:22, 23, that
section of the Psalms the Jews called the Hallel (Psalms
113-118). They were the most important group of public
prayers used for Jewish worship in the Old Testament,
and they were sung during such high feasts as Passover
and the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus quoted decisively
from these prayers and built his messianic claim upon
the promises and predictions found within the Hallel , as
he identified himself as “the chief cornerstone,” the one
the builders rejected.

The most famous of all psalmic prayer quotations in
the New Testament was uttered by our Lord during his
darkest hour on the cross: “ ‘My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? . . .’” This is one of the few places in

Prayer — Between Friends

the New Testament where the Gospel writers record Je¬
sus speaking in Aramaic, the northern dialect of his
youth. The people of Judah, who were standing around
the cross did not understand Jesus’ Aramaic quotation
from the opening words of Psalm 22 and thought he in¬
stead was asking for Elijah. But this was not the case, as
in his agony Jesus called out to his heavenly Father in
the language of his boyhood.

Psalm 103

A Prayer-Song of Worship. It is important to
our understanding of these psalmic prayer-songs for us
to remember that all the subjective ones have their
foundation secured in the objective ones. Remember, an
objective psalm states great facts about who God is; the
objective affirmation also has a profoundly subjective el¬
ement, simply because objective truth always creates a
strong subjective response when we really believe what
we sing and pray. But before we either praise God or
cry out to him for help, we depend upon the founda¬
tional truth that God stands beneath every prayer-
song. In coming to a clearer understanding of this
truth, let’s take a close look at a classic example of an
objective psalm:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits —
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalm 103:1-5

Now, this psalm begins with the word bless, translated
from the Hebrew word barak , which means “to bow.” In
other words, this actually reads, “I bow to the Lord and to
his holy name.” As we have seen, “bless” is a word for
worship, and this psalm begins and ends with that
thought.

Next, we ask, “Why does David bow before the Lord?”
He does, we read, because God forgives all our iniqui¬
ties, because he heals all of our diseases, and because
he redeems our lives from the Pit. Notice now that
David is recounting the objective and durable facts
about God. God crowns us with steadfast love and
mercy. And he is the One who satisfies us with good as
long as we live so that our youth is renewed like the
eagle’s.

About three hundred years after David wrote this
psalm, the Book of Isaiah was written. Yet if we read
Psalm 103:15, we see its influence upon Isaiah, 40:6, “. . .
All people are grass. . . .” Then notice the similarity be¬
tween the final paragraph of this chapter of Isaiah and
Psalm 103:5. The prophet writes: “Even youths will faint
and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but
those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles . . (Isaiah
40:30, 31). From this literary comparison, we can begin
to see how many Old Testament prophets built songs and
prayers upon the Book of Psalms’ foundation.

Prayer — Between Friends

God’s Acts on Behalf of the Oppressed. In the
second movement of Psalm 103, verses 6-14, we are told
that the Lord acts in vindication and judgment for all
oppressed people. Note the wording of this magnificent
prayer-song:

The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love
toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion for his children,

so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:6-14

Here we are told the objective fact that the Lord is
merciful and gracious, and we discover this truth about
God by what he says and by what he does. Such a fun¬
damental truth will give us confidence when we pray. I
have to believe that the Apostle Paul was influenced by
this theme when he wrote these vivid words of hope to
the Christians at Rome:

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will
hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being
killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to
be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39

Our Weakness Versus God’s Generosity. The
next movement of Psalm 103 contrasts the frailty of peo¬
ple with the God who loves his children and gives them
good gifts:

As for mortals, their days are like grass;

they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant and remember
to do his commandments.

Psalm 103:15-18

At the same time this is a psalm about the law. It is
about God’s will and our responsibility to obey the reve¬
lation of his will. Further, it speaks about God’s faith-

Prayer — Between Friends

fulness and love. We also catch the contrast between
God’s strength and our frailty as the psalm writer com¬
pares the human family to grass that is here today and
gone tomorrow. Our lives lack permanence in them¬
selves, but the character and promises of God stand for¬
ever.

God’s Stability in a Changing World. In the fi¬
nal movement of this powerful prayer-song the psalmist
writes:

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.

Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.

Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers that do his will.

Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Psalm 103:19-22

In these concluding sentences we have a prayer-song
of very deep feeling that is objective in form and content
as the writer describes the fundamental issue of God’s
stability in a world of change.

Wanted! A Personal Response. As we reflect on
this psalmic prayer-song, we will do well to ask, “How
should we respond to this psalm? What does this prayer-
song say to us about our own prayers?” To bring my own
reflections into sharper focus, I must ask, “Is this the
prayer-song of my life? Would I have written something

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

like this?” Indeed, these penetrating questions call for
prayerful response!

Our family has always enjoyed playing the game Triv¬
ial Pursuit . Recently I was stumped by a question about
when the Olympic Games were held in Mexico City. This
lapse disturbed me, because I have always been an avid
follower of the various Olympic contests. Then I realized
that while Olympic dates of themselves are interesting,
they are not permanently memorable. In fact, every hu¬
man date and event is in the final analysis like the blade
of grass spoken of in the psalm — like grass they finally
fade away. Sooner or later the games we play and the
game scores fade from our memories. Because of this uni¬
versal “memory fade-out” we need objective psalmic
prayer-songs in our lives that remind us of a reality not
like yesterday’s statistics — faded if not totally forgotten.

This leads me to narrow my question even further, “Do
I have objective prayer-songs for my life? Or do I rely
primarily on ‘feeling’ prayer-songs?” If my response in¬
dicates that my prayer-songs center mostly on my feel¬
ings, I am forced to confront this objective question,
“What is true today or tomorrow, regardless of how I
feel?” The answer comes through to me loud and clear
that Psalm 103 lays before me the eternal truth so es¬
sential to my existence: We may be like the grass the
psalmist speaks of; but two things remain durable — God’s
justice/truth and his love/forgiveness are facts that will
stand for all time. These give eternal meaning to friend¬
ship with God.

I am convinced that we all need both durable prayer-
songs and the up-and-down subjective ones. We live ev¬
eryday with ups and downs. In the midst of these, we
need objective reality that stands when everything else

Prayer — Between Friends

is dried out by the winds that plague our human exist¬
ence. Unless prayer has godward objectiveness, it is
only an inner attitude exercise of religious sentiment
and feeling.

That is what pros , the “toward” prefix, in proseucho-
mai , “pray toward,” is all about. The Septuagint trans¬
lators, over two thousand years ago, understood the
importance of using prayer words that would shift our
attention away from a preoccupation with techniques of
prayer toward “to whom” we pray. Without the God
who is really there, our prayers would only be interior
mood changes with a religious flavor. Imagine! He who
made the marvel of the human ear is himself able to
hear our prayers! This means that prayer is profoundly
personal, for God is personal, and at the very core of
this communication reality is his living personhood and
character.

At the same time the prayer-songs of the Bible are
wonderfully subjective as well. The prayers of the Book of
Psalms and those throughout all of the Bible resonate
with our own lives. At times they do so with more accu¬
racy than any other part of Scripture.

A friend told me that during a very difficult period in
his life the only part of Scripture he could read was the
Bible’s prayer-song book — the Psalms. Their rhythm of
realism and hope and their honest admission of grief
mixed with praise nourished him. This book of prayer
met him at the point of his deepest need, of his deepest
feelings. His choice to live in the Psalms was right, for
there he saw who God is. The surprise for him was that
he met the objective Lord of grace and truth at the core of
these highly personal and honest prayer-songs of the
soul.

When we pray, God invites us to enter into the vast

The Prayer-Songs of Our Lives

cathedral of great objective truths about himself. We dis¬
cover the deeply personal language of our friendship with
God and participate in the reality that “the steadfast love
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. . .” (Psalm
103:17)

Prayer and Meditation: Keys

to Survival

In these closing days of the twentieth century we live
in the convenience of a communication revolution, and
one symbol of this massive change is the VCR— a ma¬
chine that is drastically altering the life-style of millions
of families. With this marvelous contraption you can at¬
tend an evening church meeting or the PTA and not miss
your favorite television program. At one time a missed
program was gone forever, but not now.

Between television and the VCR we are caught in a
massive communications overload that can so easily ab¬
sorb every waking moment. In times of crisis, with the
aid of satellites and movie films, we instantly become
involved in news in the Middle East or Asia or Africa.
With the amazing array of modern communication tech¬
nology, we also become participants in events occurring
in the outreaches of space.

Never before have people been subjected to both the

Prayer — Between Friends

marvel and the curse of our current communication and
media capabilities. So how do we cope? How do we live in
a world where there is so much media stimulus? How do
we make sense out of our twenty-four-hour days and
maintain our perspective in the midst of the colossal flood
of impressions that stagger our minds and emotions? How
do we steer a course through all of this and still arrive at
the most important goals of our lives? How do we arrive
at the end of each day with a handle on who we are as
Christians, as husbands or wives or parents or friends?

The Focus Principle

Confronting the art of creative living in an electronic
age is not unlike the challenge that faces an Olympic
athlete in gymnastic events. For both balance is so cru¬
cial. Watching a gymnast performing on parallel bars in
a huge stadium, packed with a noisy and enthusiastic
crowd, I always feel awe. Uppermost in my mind is the
question, How does a gymnast execute those precise rou¬
tines in the middle of such confusion ?

Closer to home, I have often wondered how, just mo¬
ments before closing time, my mechanic can diagnose the
mysterious ailment plaguing my car. Then there’s the
surgeon who performs a delicate operation, sometimes
even under a microscope, in the glare of blinding lights
and in front of restless medical students. We’ve all ob¬
served the secretary working doggedly to complete a pri¬
ority project while being constantly interrupted by
telephone calls.

How do these “ordinary” people accomplish their tasks
under such high-pressure circumstances? The answer is
not all that complicated: They do what they have to do,
irrespective of their surroundings, by focusing their at-

Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival

tention and concentration upon a few important tasks.
These people have learned how to “major on the majors
and minor on the minors” by putting any distracting el¬
ements out of their minds.

In talking with some of my scuba-diving friends, I
learned that a diver can so easily become disoriented fifty
feet below the surface. Believe me, this would be no time
to panic, so every diver is trained to remember three
things: Look for your partner, search the water for his or
her air bubbles, and then ascend slowly. Everything else,
especially sickening waves of panic, must be put out of
the diver’s mind in favor of the most important facts.

The truth is that most of us can handle any pressure
when we learn to focus, and this principle can transform
our prayer life. Our study of the prayers and prayer-
songs of the Bible is so important to our own prayer jour¬
ney, because these prayers and prayer-songs focus on
God’s character, on objective truth.

At the same time, though, these prayers contain a
subjective element, describing our feelings and ex¬
periences — those common to our daily struggle for mean¬
ing. When we read a prayer-song about grief or fear or
joy, we identify with the psalmist’s words and feelings.
When we subjectively examine our complaints, our grief,
our joy, our hurt of any kind — all of which may be valid —
they must fit into a larger framework — the objective
foundation of God’s nature. Otherwise they may cause us
to be distracted at a time of vulnerability.

I’ve realized that it is impossible for me to keep per¬
spective when I become the center of my own attention.
Instead I need a plan for focusing, for maintaining a
proper perspective. Each of us must catch the truth that
meditation in the Bible is in reality the simple act of
focusing. The psalmist expressed it, “Let the words of my

Prayer — Between Friends

mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to
you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14,
italics mine).

As we seek to understand what meditation means in
our individual prayer journeys, we must abolish the idea
that it means emptying our minds. Some seminars and
self-realization courses have tried to sell us on the myth
that when we are under stress we should shift our minds
into neutral: We are to relax and coast and clear our
minds completely.

When I have become particularly fatigued or over¬
loaded with pressure, a natural inclination has encour¬
aged me to clear or empty my mind of thoughts and
worries. But Scripture describes a better way.

At such times I have learned I need a mind that is able
to focus on the great truths about God’s character and his
promises, and the Bible’s prayer-song book offers the
help I need to accomplish this. The biblical teaching
about meditation points toward the great truths: We are
to clarify our minds rather than empty them. Just as the
disoriented scuba diver doesn’t need an empty mind, but
one focused on finding his or her partner and then fol¬
lowing the air bubbles to the surface, we need the guid¬
ance of God’s Word.

Will a parent facing a crisis with a child who needs
assurance of love engage in a mind-emptying exercise?
Not if he or she has the child’s best interests at heart.
Instead, the parent needs a clear mind — one that imme¬
diately is present and quick to give assurance of love and
caring. To hesitate or withdraw at such times may well
result in a missed opportunity.

A Focused Mind and Meditative Prayer

A focused mind — one saturated with meditative prayer
-—helps us distinguish the important in life from the less

Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival

important. Happily, the Bible offers us a rich tradition of
prayer as meditative focusing, and Scripture includes a
great deal of teaching that helps us understand and prac¬
tice the prayer of meditation.

Psalm 77 is a marvelous prayer-song in the meditation
tradition of the Bible. It gives us a rich and diverse vo¬
cabulary of focusing and shows us that focusing has noth¬
ing to do with the myth of emptying our minds. Rather,
this psalm emphasizes clarifying our minds, attuning
them so we can concentrate on the two or three most vital
truths of the moment. Then we can place our feelings in
the context of those great truths.

The Feelings of a Prayer-Song Writer. In read¬
ing this psalm, we confront all of the emotions of the
subjective psalms; we hear the psalmist's complaint and
his cry of near panic; at the beginning, we confront his
disorientation as the writer tries to express his feelings
in a time of harrowing stress.

Sheer terror fills the opening words of the psalm. But
gradually, after giving vent to anger, dismay, and self¬
doubt, the writer remembers God and his mighty deeds.
In that remembering, he discovers a solid hope. But first,
the panic:

I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, that he may hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched
out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.

Psalm 77:1, 2

We catch an overpowering sense of catastrophe here,
and the writer seems to feel he must scream, if God is to

Prayer — Between Friends

hear him. Notice, he can’t relax at night as he stretches
out his hand in an effort to find and touch God. In varying
degrees most of us have felt that way. We’ve experienced
those hours of darkness, when our souls could find no
comfort and nothing and no one was there to help. This is
a powerful description of depression.

Now the psalmist continues:

I think of God, and I moan;

I meditate, and my spirit faints.

You keep my eyelids from closing;

I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

I consider the days of old,
and remember the years of long ago.

I commune with my heart in the night;

I meditate and search my spirit:

“Will the lord spurn forever,
and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love ceased forever?

Are his promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Has he in anger shut up his compas¬
sion?”

And I say, “It is my grief
that the right hand of the Most High has

changed.”

Psalm 77:3-10

In these words the prayer-song writer looks inward
and outward at the same moment as he gets in touch
with the complexity of his feelings. It is fascinating to
note that he uses almost all the love vocabulary of the
Old Testament in these verses. But he wonders if that

Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival

grace is there for him and asks if God has any compassion
toward him. We can’t help but feel something of the writ¬
er’s anger and fear of his own powerlessness.

Airplane pilots sometimes fly into what they term a
“white out”; they lose all orientation. They may feel they
are flying upside-down, when in reality they are right-
side up. At such times they can’t rely on their senses but
must depend entirely on their instruments.

Have you ever entered, as I have, a long “white out” of
the soul? If so, spiritually you were not quite sure
whether you were upside-down or right-side up. When
Christians feel bombarded on every side, how do we keep
perspective? What do we do?

The answer comes through clearly: We focus as the
psalmist does. Up to this point he has expressed his feel¬
ings. Had he ended the prayer-song now, it would offer
no help or hope — not for him and certainly not for us. But
there’s more.

Three Important Prayer Words

As we move into the second half of the psalm, notice
three great words of focusing: remember , meditate, and
muse.

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;

I will remember your wonders of old.

I will meditate on all your work,
and muse on your mighty deeds.

Your way, O God, is holy.

What god is so great as our God?

You are the God who works wonders;
you have displayed your might among the peoples.

Prayer — Between Friends

With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
the descendents of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

Psalm 77:11-15, italics mine

In order to capture the prayer-song's full implication,
we need to probe further into the three words: remember ,
meditate and muse. The Hebrew word translated “I will
remember” in verse 11 is zakar — the same word was
translated '‘meditate” in verses 3 and 6. The word trans¬
lated “meditate” in verse 12 is the Hebrew siah , a word
used by actors that means “to rehearse” or “to think
through the implications.” We might distinguish these
two words by saying that zakar means to remember the
lines, and siah means to rehearse. Both are essential for
effective prayer-meditation.

These words were illuminated for me a few years ago
when I had a part in a play. Before any of us actors could
work on the interpretation of our lines, we had to learn
them. Our director drove this point home: “I want you to
know your lines so well that when one character finishes
his speech, the next actor, without even a second thought
or hesitation, moves right into the next line. We will not
be ready to interpret until each actor knows the lines
flawlessly. Only when you really know your lines can you
work on the nuances. Then we will not only know what
the words say but what they mean. Only then can we add
the subtle intonations and meanings.”

The third word, “muse,” is the Hebrew haga> referred
to earlier, which literally means “to hum.” We not only
remember and rehearse the lines of our prayer-song, we
hum them in the deepest recesses of our souls. They are
a part of us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival

An apt modern analogy to this appears in the actions of
a well-oiled football team in which every player must
know the various plays so well that he moves instinc¬
tively into the right position and formation as soon as the
play is called. Everything he has learned and rehearsed
becomes automatic as each player makes his move, in
spite of the efforts of the other team to frustrate the game
plan.

In this way, a football game becomes a surprising and
highly charged parable of prayer-meditation — we so re¬
member the truth of God’s forgiveness and goodness, we
so rehearse the reality of his grace and goodness that it
becomes a part of us. We know it; we live it — from the
inside out. Prayer-meditation springs up from the deep¬
est recesses of our beings and becomes the prayer lan¬
guage of our friendship with God.

Finally, the Hebrew word selah , found at the end of
verse 15, adds to this imagery. While this word appears
several times throughout the Book of Psalms, language
and biblical scholars have never agreed on its meaning.
It has been suggested that it likely was some form of
instruction for musicians or worshipers in the Jerusa¬
lem Temple. We do, however, have one textual clue as
to what it may mean at the end of verse 16 of Psalm 9,
where the Hebrew reads, higion selah. We know that
the root of higion is haga , which means “to hum.” If this
is the case, we have the instruction to hum —
meditate — on the meaning of the prayer-song, that has
literally become a part of us. Danish theologian and
philosopher Sdren Kierkegaard expressed the same idea
when he wrote, “I don’t know the truth until it becomes
a part of me.”

The association of selah with “hum” and “meditation”

Prayer — Between Friends

makes a lot of sense. We hum the tunes that arise from
our deepest selves. As we remember, meditate, and muse
in our prayer pilgrimage, like the writer of this prayer-
song, we will focus on those enduring realities of life with
God. Though the psalm writer openly expressed his pain
and overwhelming grief, at a certain moment he delib¬
erately and consciously says, “I will call to mind. . . .” His
mind is flooded with God’s actions in the past, and he
determines at that moment to concentrate and meditate
on them.

For all of us the good news is that the God who re¬
deemed this prayer-song writer is our redeemer, too.
That is something to remember, to rehearse, and to hum
about — something to prayerfully reflect on and meditate
about, as we shut out the distractions of our technologi¬
cally noisy world.

At this point I remember what happened long ago in
the Jerusalem upper room, when Jesus celebrated the
Last Supper with his disciples. For as we participate in
this sacred rite, as Jesus commanded — “Do this until I
come” — we celebrate these three great facts that we are
encouraged to remember, to rehearse, and to hum.

1. We are to remember that our Lord has, once and
for all, won the victory over death, sin, and the
devil.

2. We remember it was a costly victory — our Lord
suffered and died for us. That is why we experi¬
ence feelings of deep pathos and even grief as we
eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance
of his broken body and shed blood.

3. We remember that the resurrected Jesus is our
Redeemer — he is alive and with us now. As we
remember and focus — prayerfully meditate — on

Prayer and Meditation: Keys to Survival

this compelling truth, we sense his real presence
with us. Indeed the Eucharist is a New Testa¬
ment means of focusing.

The Apostle Paul and a Strategy for Focusing

Writing to his Christian friends at Philippi, the Apos¬
tle Paul lays out a strategy for focusing that follows
closely what we have discovered in the psalmic prayer-
songs. He keenly understands the need for the Philippian
Christians and us to cry out to God in prayer and to
express our feelings, whatever they may be. But he fol¬
lows all of this with an exhortation to meditate on God’s
goodness and faithfulness:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Re¬
joice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The
Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication let your re¬
quests be made known to God. And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, what¬
ever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there
is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of
praise, think about these things.

Philippians 4:4-8, italics mine

Indeed, as, through prayerful meditation, we focus on
the goodness of the Lord and the truth “ ‘his steadfast
love endures forever’ ” (Psalm 118), we link up with the
people of God in all of time, described by the prayer-song
writer with these words:

Prayer — Between Friends

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever. . . .

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 146:5, 6, 10

Who Is There When We Pray?

The people of the Bible — our spiritual ancestors —
constantly struggled to maintain a relationship with a
God they could not see. Throughout the centuries of hu¬
man existence, people have wrestled with the reality of
God. Our human pragmatic mind-set cries out for con¬
crete proof that God is — that there is really someone out
there who hears us when we pray.

Questions That Won’t Go Away

In our better moments we echo the feelings and senti¬
ments of the Bible’s prayer-song writers, but in the nitty-
gritty give-and-take of life another side of us cries out for
proof that the God to whom we pray actually exists.
Prayer forces these questions of our minds and feelings to
center stage, and for this reason the existence of God and
the proofs of his existence are old questions that just
won’t go away.

Prayer — Between Friends

Again, in our better moments and at the very starting
place in our praying, we trust that God is real and pow¬
erful; yet when we attempt to give convincing proofs to
anyone who questions us, the explanations and proofs
seem weak to them. In his Screwtape Letters , C. S. Lewis,
a brilliant British writer and theologian, has his senior
devil, Screwtape, wrestling with the question of why God
does not make dramatic use of his almighty power and
thereby prove once and for all that he is there. Finally,
Screwtape comments to Wormwood, a junior devil, “You
must have often wondered why the Enemy [God] does not
make more use of his power . . . but you now see that the
Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons
which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use
. . . He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice.”1

Most certainly we do not have a pragmatic proof for
God that sweeps away every question. In Greek mythol¬
ogy, Zeus, the head god, always overwhelmed people and
the lesser gods by his power. But we do not experience
such proofs from God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead we have just enough evidence to assure us of the
love, the integrity, and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
On the basis of that evidence, we believe and pray.

Can I Have Absolute Proof?

During the years when I was minister to students at
University Presbyterian Church, in Seattle, a young man
came to me for help and counsel. He was struggling with
very serious doubts about God. After we talked at con¬
siderable length, I asked him what would help him the
most at this stage of his struggle.

“I’d need absolute proof of God’s existence,” he replied.

Who Is There When We Pray?

I then asked my young friend what kind of proof would
satisfy him, and I promised to attempt to respond. He
leaned back in his chair, looked out the window of my
office, pointed to a tree on the church grounds, and said,
“If I could see that tree split in two by lightning at ex¬
actly 12:05 this afternoon, I would consider that proof
positive of God’s existence.”

After thinking about his request for a few moments, I
looked him straight in the eyes. “Okay, let us suppose
that it is now 12:06 this afternoon, and the tree is split
cleanly by lightning,” I responded. “Everything has hap¬
pened just as you described it. What has your ‘proof
proved?”

A prolonged silence greeted my question.

Then I added, “I think the split tree would only prove
the existence of some mysterious spiritual power that for
whatever reason chose to amuse a couple of human be¬
ings on Northeast Forty-fifth Street and possibly even
deceive them.”

While I didn’t mention it at the time, the split tree
could also have been the result of an incredible coinci¬
dence. But the truth is that there is no proof of the kind
this student thought he wanted — absolute proof of the
existence of God. Certainly a tree split by lightning on
the campus of University Presbyterian Church at 12:05
in the afternoon would not possibly tell us anything about
the character of God — about either his love or his faith¬
fulness.

My exchange with that university student illuminates
the dilemma we face when we make a demand for abso¬
lute reasons and assurances from God. Any “absolute”
proof falls short because in the words of Blaise Pascal,
seventeenth-century Christian and French philosopher,
“We do not trust our senses.” Each new day would call for

Prayer — Between Friends

more dramatic proof to prop up a misplaced faith. Abso¬
lutes are impossible for us to design or experience. Our
imagination is never satisfied precisely because we are
not absolute and never will be.

Only God is absolute, and that is why there are no
absolute proofs of his existence that we humans can
fathom. The so-called absolute proof that my friend
thought he wanted turned out to be neither absolute nor
proof. This sort of thing doesn’t really prove any of the
important things that God wants us to know. In no way
could such an act express the deepest realities of who God
is or what he does.

No, Almighty God cannot be “proved,” because he is
too vast to prove. But here is the great good news — God is
not too vast to make himself known to us! And this he
does.

Happily, as we have moved steadily toward the end of
the twentieth century, with its amazing record of tech¬
nological achievements that have opened up staggering
secrets of both our world and the universe, we have
reached the place where the existence of God is not the
central question. The evidence of science and nature is
too overwhelming. Both quantum mechanics and Ein-
steinian physics have brought us into a recognition that
the universe has experienced what Stephen Hawking in
A Brief History of Time has called “the extraordinarily
vast” and the “extraordinarily tiny.” This amazing mix¬
ture of discoveries has made the comment of astronomer
Sir James Jeans more relevant than ever: “There is a
cheater in the universe.”

Clearly probability and the laws of randomness cannot
explain existence to us in any way that will satisfy the
mind of either the philosopher or the physicist. Conse¬
quently, science compels us to ponder creation by

Who Is There When We Pray?

decision — the deliberate act of a divine Creator. In my
search for understanding and in my prayer pilgrimage, I
can accept the fact of the existence of a Creator because
I see so much evidence of his handiwork in creation. Yet
somehow I need something else; I need to understand the
will behind the Creator’s actions and decisions.

Who Is There?

When I was twelve years old, my family lived in Mc¬
Cloud, California, a small lumber town perched on the
lower reaches of Mount Shasta, in the northern part of
the state. In due course I joined Troop 42 of the Boy
Scouts of America. As a Tenderfoot Scout my initiation
was to complete a two-and-one-half-mile hike in the dead
of night from the troop’s campsite back to the town of
McCloud. But here was the catch — I had to go it alone
and without the use of a light of any kind. Believe me,
the nights are really black in that isolated and remote
part of the country.

I still have vivid recollections of that scary journey and
several experiences of stark terror, when I heard a move¬
ment or any strange sound. My imagination ran wild,
and more than once I froze at what sounded like footsteps
while I strained in vain to pierce the dense darkness.

That night I made the important discovery that the
question of the “existence” of something in the under¬
brush near me was nowhere near important as “who”
might be lurking nearby. My boyish mind had no diffi¬
culty in feeling that a certain something or someone was
there, because I could hear the evidence of sound. But of
signal importance to me was the “who” behind those
sounds. Was it a bear? a timid deer? a prowling skunk? or
a person? To carry the illustration to its central point, I

Prayer — Between Friends

got absolutely no assurance from any proofs about the
reality of something making noises. I wanted more; it
was the “who” that really mattered. In the same way for
me and my generation it isn’t enough to know that God
or some first source of creation power exists. Rather the
significant information in my intellectual journey of faith
is the character of the God who exists.

Once this distinction became clear, I was convinced
that the writers of the Bible are quite correct in their
apparent lack of concern about offering proof of the prior
existence of God. Instead, the prayer-songs and narra¬
tives in Scripture totally focus on revealing the character
of the God who exists. This across-the-board concern sur¬
faces throughout the entire Bible, as every prayer text in
Scripture addresses this vital question: Who is there
when I dare to pray?

A God of Law and Grace

The objective psalms are not intended as proof or ab¬
solute statements that define who God is or what he must
do. Rather, these prayer-songs point toward God’s self¬
disclosure of his character, as illuminated in his cove¬
nants and law — those promises God gives us as revealed
in the law and gospel of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 119, a superb example of an objective psalm, is
known as a Torah song — a song of law. It points to God’s
self-disclosure of his will in the law and focuses on the
character of the God of the law, who is also the God of
grace.

God has already made the promises of that self¬
disclosure clear in both the convenant and law and
through the One who fulfilled all his laws and
covenants — his Son, Jesus Christ.

Who Is There When We Pray?

With this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we pray not
only to the God of mystery and holy freedom but to the
God who has shown us his profound personhood. Notice
in these few lines from Psalm 119 how this, the longest of
the Torah songs, points toward the Lord of our prayers:

“Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
and I will observe it to the end.

Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.

Lead me in the path of your commandments,
for I delight in it.

Turn my heart to your decrees,
and not to selfish gain.

Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;
give me life in your ways.

Confirm to your servant your promise,
which is for those who fear you.

Turn away the disgrace that I dread,
for your ordinances are good.

See, I have longed for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life.

Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord,
your salvation according to your promise.

Psalm 119:33-41

The prayer-song writer emphasizes the law of God as
the good promise given us of God’s love toward us. Con¬
sequently, as we pray this prayer, we express our desire
to walk in the way of God’s will.

As we follow the psalmist’s response to the divine dis¬
closure, we receive a framework of knowledge of God’s
nature and learn his will for us. Then we can intercede

Prayer — Between Friends

and make requests of the Lord who not only knows us,
but whom we know, too.

Further along, the psalm writer prays for help — and so
do we — in understanding God and his ways:

Your hands have made and fashioned me;
give me understanding that I may learn
your commandments.

Psalm 119:73

Note the final, urgent words of the psalm as with pow¬
erful realism the songwriter pleads for help:

Let your hand be ready to help me,
for I have chosen your precepts.

I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight.

Let me live that I may praise you,
and let your ordinances help me.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
seek out your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.

Psalm 119:173-176

The writer asked for help on the basis of the objective
self-disclosure of God’s love and justice, as shown in the
convenant made on Mount Sinai with the people of Is¬
rael, and he expressed deep yearning for the good news of
God’s covenant of grace alongside his covenant of law.
This very mixture of grace and truth inevitably results in
our prayer, when we center only on God himself.

As I personalize the marvelous truth that comes
through in this psalmic prayer-song, I readily acknowl¬
edge my need for such prayer. Not only do I require

Who Is There When We Pray?

the prayer that suspects GocTs existence, I need the kind
of prayer that wagers on the God of love who cares deeply,
as a loving Friend, about a twelve-year-old boy picking
his way along in the dark, fearful of the unknown night
sounds.

I believe that every person who begins this journey of
faith, with all of the tentativeness and hesitation and fear
and hope that are a part of that journey, will have an ex¬
perience that parallels mine. Let’s face it, prayer begins
with many half-solved questions, mixed together with
early hopes and partial evidences. But as we progress, the
evidences of God’s goodness and faithfulness become surer
and stronger, until they become assurances of our pro¬
found friendship with him. And as we grow in that assur¬
ance, our prayers grow in depth and joyousness— -this is
the best proof of all.

The Crisis of Faith:

A Case Study in the Book of

Job

For me, over the years prayer has been a most impor¬
tant part of my daily routine, especially at meals and in
the morning and evening. But at two other times I re¬
spond spontaneously in prayer: when a special joy breaks
in upon my loved ones or upon me, or when I or someone
I especially know and love is hurting.

Most people experience this, and that is understand¬
able, because at such moments we must not attempt to
live alone. In fact, prayer is the most profound of all
relational moments, even if we do not feel immediate
relational benefits.

A Victim of Disaster

The Old Testament Book of Job tells the story of a man
caught in the grip of a lonely crisis, and it documents in
living color the impact of that crisis upon Job and the

Prayer — Between Friends

people in his life. While at first we might not understand
it this way, the Book of Job is at its center about the most
fundamental meanings of prayer.

Without doing a thorough commentary on this unique
part of Scripture, we will focus in briefly on the contents
as it relates to the message God gives us about prayer.
Job doesn’t start out with the prayer theme. Rather it
begins by recounting dialogue between God and Satan.
The Lord asks Satan:

“Where have you come from?” Satan answered the
Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from
walking up and down on it.” The Lord said to Satan,
“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no
one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright
man who fears God and turns away from evil.” Then
Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for
nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and
his house and all that he has, on every side? You
have blessed the work of his hands, and his posses¬
sions have increased in the land. But stretch out
your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he
will curse you to your face.”

Job 1:7-11

As a result of this dialogue, God allows his servant Job
to experience intense affliction. Job loses all his livestock,
his crops, his land, and his children. But while he suffers
the agonies of these losses, we read, “In all this Job did
not sin or charge God with wrong-doing”(l:22).

An additional conversation between God and Satan fol¬
lows, and God releases Satan to afflict Job physically but
not at the expense of his life. Next, the writer tells us, “So
Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and in-

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

flicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to
the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to
scrape himself, and sat among the ashes” (2:7, 8).

Job’s Advisors

The major portion of the Job story follows the intense
calamities that strike his life. In these scenes we learn of
Job’s encounters with people and finally with God. A sig¬
nificant part of these involves dialogue between Job and
his wife. A series of conversations also takes place be¬
tween Job and three friends, who, upon hearing of the
cataclysmic disasters that Job has experienced, travel
from their homes to commiserate with him.

In her anger at the injustice of Job’s suffering, Job’s
wife suggests that he commit suicide, “ *. . . Curse God,
and die’ ” (2:9). But for Job, this is not an option he will
accept.

Later, when Job speaks to his friends, they generally
seem to agree that he is guilty of sin. He needs to repent,
they decide, and the only prayer for a man in his condi¬
tion is the prayer of grief and total apology, an admission
of guilt.

These solutions represent the secular and religious an¬
swers to human tragedy. Job’s wife offers the secular
alternative to trusting God. For her, the reasonable
choice and natural instinct when someone experiences
pain is to move away from it, and because there is injus¬
tice in the suffering, the face-saving answer is to curse
the source. Job’s friends, representing the voice of reli¬
gion, suggest that Job should not question God. Rather,
he should question only himself in an effort to discover
what mistakes he had made that brought on the tragic
reversal in his fortunes.

Prayer — Between Friends

Instead of caving in to either suggestion, Job chooses a
third way, demanding an audience with God, “ ‘But I
would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my
case with God’ ” (13:3). With these words, Job goes to the
very heart of the human search for a way to cope with
suffering. Because of Job’s insistence and lonely persis¬
tence, the message of this story resonates at a profound
level with the soul of every person who searches for God
and for a way to honestly pray to him.

As we shall see, almost every religious argument made
concerning suffering and the ways of prayer is discussed
at length by Job’s friends. Certainly their arguments are
not thoughtless or shallow. In his commentary on the
Book of Job, Francis Andersen offers this conclusion
about their religious arguments, “What makes this col¬
lision of minds so dramatic is the soundness of their views
and the cogency of their arguments. The author of the
Book of Job has not set up men of straw against Job.”1
While there is cogency at one shallow level, a profound
wrongness exists at a deep level, as we will discover in
the climactic ending of the story.

The encounters we have in Job provide several cogent
ways of understanding human crisis. Some have sug¬
gested that this is one reason Job is such an obscure
figure in biblical and Jewish history. We know virtually
nothing about him — we’re only told that he lived some¬
where east of the Jordan River. In this rather odd way
Job becomes like every other human being who suffers or
has felt wronged by disaster. All who hurt feel the same
sense of aloneness, and consequently those who suffer
relate to everyone else who shares their situation. We all
feel the need to pray, but a dryness may fill our mouths
when we try to say the words. We relate to Job as he sits
in ashes, while his wife and friends attempt to advise him

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

without really helping. Instinctively we understand Job’s
aloneness during his time of suffering.

The Ingredients of Job’s Crisis

There are three ingredients to Job’s crisis.

1. The physical and interpersonal suffering, related
in the opening words of the story, including the
loss of property and his children. This stands as a
backdrop to everything else.

2. The crisis instigated by the counsel of Job’s wife.

3. Job’s confrontation of the crisis, brought on by
the counsel he receives from his friends.

The last two crises I will describe as being related to Job’s
bafflement toward himself and toward God, and these
dominate most of the Book of Job— -thirty-eight of the
forty-two chapters.

In spite of the counsel from Job’s wife, he at no time
contemplates suicide as the best out for his trouble. When
she suggests that he curse God and die, she is angry at
God, saying, in effect, “Job, why don’t you reject this life?
Go out of life in a show of justifiable rage; shake your fist
at God and die.”

Mrs. Job is like the wife Diffidence, in John Bunyan’s
Pilgrim's Progress. She is the queen in the Castle of Gi¬
ant Despair, and through her husband, the Giant, she
urges Christian and Hopeful to kill themselves, because
they are imprisoned there. Fortunately, Christian and
Hopeful reject her advice and in the nick of time find the
key called the promise of God. With that key they open
the castle doors.

Once Job completely rejects his wife’s counsel, the rest

Prayer — Between Friends

of the story centers on the dialogue between Job and his
pious friends.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. The writer of this
ancient story introduces Job’s friends by describing how
each of them comes together from their respective homes
and travels across long miles so they might “console and
comfort him.” But when they see their friend from a dis¬
tance, his appearance is so changed that they don’t rec¬
ognize him, “. . . and they raised their voices and wept
aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air
upon their heads.” Then, “They sat with him on the
ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a
word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very
great” (2:11-13).

Job finally broke the week-long period of sympathetic
silence when in his agony he “cursed the day of his birth”
(3:1). The whole third chapter of this remarkable book is
devoted to Job’s speech of desperation.

In response to Job’s litany of misery, Eliphaz the Te-
manite launches into a lengthy speech. He begins by tell¬
ing Job what a fine person he is and how he has
accomplished so much good (4:1-6). But after that intro¬
ductory compliment, Eliphaz gets to the point he wants
to make — only sinful people suffer. In effect, Eliphaz says,
“Only evil people suffer as badly as you are now. So, come
on, Job, what evil have you committed that has produced
your suffering?” (4-5).

Following Job’s heartrending response to Eliphaz,
Bildad the Shuhite picks up on the argument, “ Tf you
will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, if
you are pure and upright, surely then he [God] will rouse
himself for you and restore you to your rightful place’ ”
(8:5, 6).

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

The dialogue continues as Job agrees that people who
are pure will be acceptable to God. But then he asks,
“ ‘How can a mortal be just before God?’ ” (9:2). Then in
desperation he adds, “ ‘Though I am innocent, I cannot
answer him [God]; I must appeal for mercy to my ac¬
cuser’ ” (9:15). The rest of Job’s speech reflects the inten¬
sity of his doom and gloom: “ ‘I loathe my life; ... I will
speak in the bitterness of my soul. . . . Your hands fash¬
ioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me. . . .
I am filled with disgrace. . . . Why did you bring me forth
from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had
seen me’ ” (10:1, 8, 15, 18).

Following Job’s lengthy lament, the third friend,
Zophar the Naamathite, moves into the center of the
scene (Job 11) as he rephrases the central argument. In
effect he says, “Your punishment is mild compared to the
wrong you must have done. Repent, Job, because, take it
from me, I have seen people suffer, and you are not yet
suffering anything compared to them.” To pick up on a
modern-day expression, “With friends like that, Job cer¬
tainly didn’t need any enemies!”

Zophar’s bitter counsel prompts Job to make what be¬
comes his central prayer request: “ ‘What you know, I
also know; I am not inferior to you. But I would speak to
the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. As
for you, you whitewash with lies; worthless physicians
are you all’ ” (Job 13:2-4 rsv). Job makes it clear now; he
wants to talk directly with God.

It will be a while before Job gets his wish. In the mean¬
time, Eliphaz gets into the conversation again, and Job
makes a response that in turn angers Bildad. In effect
Bildad says to Job, “You speak like one who doesn’t know
God.” Broken down into today’s language, Bildad said,

Prayer — Between Friends

“You must not be a Christian, or you wouldn’t talk that
way.”

Job’s Prayer of F aith. Bildad’s words set up some

of the most magnificent lines in the Book of Job:

“O that my words were written down!

O that they were inscribed in a book!

O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever!

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God.”

19:23-26

In the middle of Job’s anguish he speaks this incredible
prayer of faith. Job has arrived at an important
decision — in the midst of his confused feelings and suf¬
fering he will trust in God. This prayer in no way mini¬
mizes his confusion or the reality of his suffering. But he
firmly grasps the profound conviction that God is his Re¬
deemer and that he lives in spite of Job’s suffering and
confusion.

Only the Guilty Suffer. Following Job’s marvel¬
ous statement of faith, Zophar returns to the conversa¬
tion and says in effect, “I feel insulted by you, Job. Don’t
you know that guilty people like you are going to expe-
rience intense judgment?”

Job counters this kind of reasoning with the state¬
ment that it is the just who suffer and the wicked who
prosper. This same bold line of reasoning has been am-

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

plified by many of Israel’s prophets. Jeremiah prayed,
“You will be in the right, O Lord, when I lay charges
against you; but let me put my case to you. Why does
the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are
treacherous thrive?” (Jeremiah 12:1). That is indeed
the cry of history. The just and righteous don’t always
flourish, and the wicked are not always punished — at
least in our lifetimes.

The dialogue continues as Eliphaz launches one final
assault against Job in an effort to prove his point, “ Ts not
your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniqui¬
ties’ ” (Job 22:5). Job’s friends are persistent — because
his suffering is so great he must be terribly wicked! Such
being the case, Eliphaz tells Job, “ ‘Agree with God, and
be at peace; in this way good will come to you’ ” (22:21).

Job Seeks to Argue His Case Before God. But
Job remains resolute. Almost as if he didn’t even hear
Eliphaz, he prays:

“Today also my complaint is bitter;
his hand is heavy despite my groaning.

Oh, that I knew where I might find him,
that I might come even to his dwelling!

I would lay my case before him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.”

23:2-4

Once again Job’s request is clear and insistent. There
is only one answer to his dilemma; he wants to argue his
case before God face-to-face. He prays here as if God was
his Friend — one who understands his need. “Job rejects
the secular solution to holiness. He will not curse God.

Prayer — Between Friends

He rejects the religious solution to his problem. He will
not curse himself. He chooses a third way. He would ar¬
gue with God.” (Jen Palmer, student paper written at
Stamford University.)

Now, as we have probed at the meaning behind this
remarkable old book, we can begin to understand why it
gives us such a splendid case study of the dynamics of
prayer. Here Job asks for the right to pray, and for him
prayer is fundamentally an encounter between an ordi¬
nary person and the Lord who hears. For Job, prayer is
not easy, and he struggles to find God. Nevertheless, he
reaches out almost frantically to the Lord. In his distress
he isn’t sure the Lord is his friend, but Job trusts him
enough to want to argue with him.

On and on the dialogue goes between Job and his
friends. Finally Bildad comes up with the harshest of all
speeches as he concludes that Job will never find God and
be in a right relationship with him. Bildad’s skepticism
and cynicism come through in these words, “ 'How then
can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born
of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright, and the
stars are not pure in his sight, how much less a mortal,
who is a maggot, and a human being, who is a worm!’ ”
(25:4-6).

How often have you heard someone say, "I feel like a
worm”? It isn’t true now any more than it was true in
Job’s day. There is, of course, a vast contrast between
ourselves and God. Yes, any righteousness we might have
counts for little in the bright light of God’s truth. But we
are not maggots or worms in God’s sight. He loves us
even though we are wayward; our lostness does not min¬
imize our worth.

After these harsh statements by Bildad, Job launches
into the longest speech in the entire book (26-31). Once

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

again Job insists that he will accept justice only from
God, not from his counselors and friends, as he belabors
his case. Finally, silence prevails.

At that point a new voice is heard. Evidently, “Elihu,
son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram” had
been a silent onlooker and listener. The writer tells us
that Elihu “was angry at Job because he justified himself
rather than God; he was angry also at Job’s three friends
because they had found no answer, though they had de¬
clared Job to be in the wrong” (32:2, 3).

In his anger Elihu denounces all of the older men, but
as we listen to him we discover that he has nothing new
to add to the dialogue. It is just more of the same dreary
rehash that has polluted the atmosphere throughout the
lengthy discussion (32-37). After Elihu has gone on at
considerable length, the Lord moves into the scene. Job
has been wanting to find God, now God finds him: “Then
the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this
that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird
up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you
shall declare to me’ ” (38:1-3). Then follows God’s mag¬
nificent challenge to Job (38-41).

Earlier I referred to Job’s crisis of bafflement, in
which he clung tenaciously to his relationship with
God, in spite of his tragic circumstances, his own ques¬
tions, and the counsel of his wife and friends. Through
all of this Job simply held on — his integrity intact even
though he had no visible support. What an amazing dis¬
play of raw faith!

Faith in Action

Karl Barth, one of our century’s greatest theologians,
gave this amazing definition of faith, which helps me to

Prayer — Between Friends

understand Job just a little bit: “Faith occurs when I hold
fast to Christ in spite of all that contradicts faith.”2 The
first time I read that sentence I thought, Barth, you must
be wrong. You meant to say that faith occurs when I hold
fast to Christ because of all the encouragement I receive
from the church, from the witness of my friends, and from
all of the biblical authorities. But that isn’t what Karl
Barth wrote, and after reading the Book of Job I believe
that Barth was right. Faith is the experience that occurs
when we hold fast to Christ in spite of the bad advice we
receive from friends, and faith enables us to pray when
everyone tells us that prayer has no value.

Now, that isn’t to say that we always receive bad ad¬
vice in the course of our Christian walk. And how thank¬
ful we can be for the faithfulness of the church, for
without it we wouldn’t have our Bible, and we would not
have heard the good news. However, if we are to have
faith in Jesus Christ, we must still have it in spite of the
church as much as because of it.

People are sorely misguided who insist they cannot
have faith in Christ because of a bad parent or an inept
Sunday-school teacher. Remember, we are to hold fast to
Christ in spite of all that seems to contradict that faith in
his faithfulness. Authentic faith is bold, and when we
dare to pray, we do so with confidence in the goodness
and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ.

This is precisely why the Book of Job is so profoundly
messianic. In his heartbreaking distress Job is deeply
disappointed by his wife and his pious friends. In his
desperation he cries out for a meeting — a conversation —
with God. Nothing else matters. He must meet the Lord
God himself. Only God can resolve the baffling questions
of life. The grand surprise in Job’s story is that God
grants his request — he answered Job’s prayer!

The Crisis of Faith: A Case Study in the Book of Job

Job gives us a clear message — when for whatever rea¬
son, suffering and hard times or any other crisis of faith
confronts us, we are to cling tenaciously to the faithful¬
ness and love of God, in spite of everything that seems to
contradict it. Indeed, contradictions are a part of life.
While we cannot resolve every thoughtful or troubling
question that plagues us, we can call out to God.

Prayer is that “call to God” in which we blurt out our
deepest feelings. In it we ask our most difficult and per¬
plexing questions and express our most painful alone-
ness. Then we, like Job, experience the electrifying
awareness that the God of our prayers is our Friend.

Surprised by Hope:
Job, a Book of Prayer

When Bad Things Happen to Good People , a book by
Harold Kushner, wrestles with the problem of human
suffering. While I don’t go along with the main thesis of
the book, I do believe he offers some intriguing insights
to the Job story.

Kushner reasons that Job’s friends and advisors had
developed a worldview in which God is good and good
things happen to good people. Consequently, when bad
things happen to people, it must be because they them¬
selves are bad. This explains their counsel to Job, which
said in effect, “Job, just admit how bad you are. Then
possibly God will help you, because God is good.”

With regard to Job’s worldview, Kushner makes the
following comment: “Job for his part is unwilling to hold
the world together theologically by admitting that he is
the villain ... He is not prepared to lie to save God’s
reputation.”1 1 believe this is correct, because Job, on one

Prayer— -Between Friends

side of this dramatic equation, refuses to curse God and
die. On the other side of this equation he refuses to curse
himself. Instead, as we have seen in our overview of the
Book of Job, he holds out for a personal confrontation
with God himself. Now, as we come at Job’s story from a
slightly different perspective, we will gain further in¬
sight into our discussion on prayer.

As Job repeatedly determines to put his case only be¬
fore God, it becomes clear that he regards God as the final
authority; and he most certainly isn’t interested in con¬
sulting with Satan, even though he caused Job’s trouble.
Job knows full well that any and all other powers in
heaven or earth are secondary, and he is only interested
in talking to the true source of his crisis, who is also his
only true source of hope.

God Takes Over

As we have already discovered, some intriguing sur¬
prises surface toward the end of Job’s story. At the be¬
ginning of chapter 38, God interrupted the lengthy
speech of young Elihu. Most certainly, Elihu comes across
as the most self-righteous of Job’s friends. I can’t help but
wonder if the Lord’s interruption at this point signals
that the pious advice of Job’s friends, who had attempted
so carefully to protect God’s honor and privilege, bored
him. So with exciting abruptness God takes over and
speaks directly to Job. God’s dialogue with Job dominates
the rest of the story.

As I reflect on this in my imagination, I can envision a
courtroom scene in which the arguments of the prosecu¬
tion and defense attorneys grind on endlessly and with
boring monotony and detail. Finally, the presiding judge
interrupts the proceedings and says, “I’ve heard enough.

Surprised by Hope: Job, a Book of Prayer

The court is now ready to announce its decision.” Such a
moment of surprise and tension would be likely to cause
consternation, as there were more witnesses to testify.
But the judge had heard enough and had formulated his
decision.

Five Surprises

God’s Response. Now, God has interrupted and
moved in. He is prepared to act. And the first surprise for
us in this encounter between God and Job is that God
doesn’t answer the two questions on everyone’s mind:
Why is Job suffering ? and, What must he do to make the
suffering stop? These were key questions for Job, and
they are for us, in our times of pain and suffering. But
God remains silent on them.

The important thing, though, is that God does respond
to Job’s most urgent prayer. Four significant things hap¬
pen in the divine encounter between God and Job. First,
though we might miss it unless we are aware of certain
customs in ancient Israel, God tells Job to stand up like
a man and talk to him. Remember, Job is afflicted with
boils, and in those days such a disorder was a symptom of
a systemic disease that demanded social isolation. This is
why Job had set himself apart in sackcloth and ashes. He
was an unclean, repelling sight. But Job’s condition nei¬
ther embarrasses nor repels God, and twice he tells Job to
stand up like a man and talk to him (Job 38:3; 40:7).

The Grand Tour. The second surprise in the en¬
counter is the content of the conversation that now takes
place. In effect, God takes Job on a grand tour of the
created order:

100

Prayer — Between Friends

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the
earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements — surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb? —
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it. . . .”

38:4-10

What a vivid picture God presents as the Creator him¬
self takes Job on an expansive journey through what he
has made! Job and his heavenly Guide journey from the
beginning places of the earth's foundation, to the estab¬
lishment of the ocean and its boundaries, to the sky, the
stars, and the animal kingdom. God shows off all of these
wonders to his sickly friend.

I don’t know about you, but here an amazing incongru¬
ity strikes me. Open wounds and boils cover Job’s body;
he has finally received his request to meet God, and Job
is going to lay out his case. But before he even has a
chance to speak, God takes him on this journey. It seems
strange and quite inappropriate, until we can understand
what is happening to Job in the psychological and spiri¬
tual core of his human nature in the presence of God.

I recall my years as a seminary student at Princeton,
from 1953-1956. Since my family was on the West Coast,

Surprised by Hope: Job, a Book of Prayer

101

our communication was primarily through the mail.
Phone rates for long distance were much higher then,
and as a result I think I made only three or four long¬
distance calls home during those three years.

My father’s brother lived in Connecticut, and I often
spent holidays with him and my grandmother while I
was at Princeton. My uncle loved to talk on the phone,
and on every visit, he would say, “Well, let’s call the
folks.” It seemed to me then that he had no concept of
time or of the cost of his calls.

His typical conversation with my father went some¬
thing like this, “Hello, Ward! I’m having a terrible time
with my string beans. I’ve got the crook-neck squash in,
and they’re doing well, but the zucchinis aren’t like last
year. I’ve got butternut squash coming out of my ears.
Incidentally, there’s a lot of crabgrass in my front lawn,
and I don’t know what to do about it. And the Haw¬
thorn roses are taking over the west wall. Oh, by the
way, I heard Dr. Peale last Sunday when I was in New
York. . . .”

While I didn’t appreciate it then, I now realize that this
is the right way to visit over the telephone. This is the
best way to get inside each other’s lives — by recounting
the little things, the apparent trivia, as though you were
sitting together visiting on the front porch.

Now, God does precisely that with Job. As I read this
part of the story, I see God talking with a friend. In effect,
he says, “Job, stand up on your feet like a man. I’m going
to show you around this world of mine. Look over there at
the sun. Isn’t that marvelous? And look at the sky today.
Did you see Orion and the other constellations? How
about Planet Earth? The sea, for instance. Isn’t it amaz¬
ing how I set up all of the boundaries to hold the sea in?
Incidentally, I’m especially proud of the animals I ere-

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ated. Look at that hippopotamus. Isn’t he something?
There is Leviathan in the ocean. He’s giving me some
trouble, but I can control him. . . .”

I see that as the inner mood of the whole dialogue.
Many readers of the Book of Job at first feel disappoint¬
ment that God doesn’t do and say more— at least address
the painful issues that plague the minds of Job and his
friends. But they fail to realize that God is doing some¬
thing very significant here as he takes Job on a journey,
as one friend would another.

We must not wrongly interpret the interrogative por¬
tions of this dialogue as God says, “ ‘Where were you
when I created? . . . Tell me if you understand. . . .
Surely you know. . . .’” I don’t agree with some inter¬
preters’ suggestion that God was trying to humiliate
Job. Certainly, further humiliation is not what Job
needs. We also know from the context of these sen¬
tences that this is not God’s intention, because in the
end the Lord commends Job in front of his stern and
unbending spiritual friends. Job is the one who was
right; his friends were wrong.

We know in moving on through the story that Job does
repent before the Lord, but his repentance is caused by
the fact that he has seen the Lord, not because the Lord
or circumstances humiliated him. This is the way the
Lord Jesus draws us toward repentance. We see his grace,
his love, and his truth, and then we recognize our pro¬
found need of his wholeness and forgiveness. This hap¬
pened to the jailer at the prison in Philippi. Based on the
marvelous witness of Paul and Silas, the jailer asked,
“ ‘. . . Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ ” (Acts 16:30).
These words came from a man who experienced generous
love — not a belittled and humiliated man.

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103

Job Is Satisfied. There are three more surprises
in the encounter between God and Job. At the conclusion
of God’s message for Job, we discover that while at first
glance God doesn’t seem to answer all of his questions,
Job is completely satisfied. Let’s take a look at what Job
says to God:

“I know that you can do all things, and that no pur¬
pose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides
counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have ut¬
tered what I did not understand, things too wonder¬
ful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will
speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I
had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now
my eye sees you.’ ”

Job 42:2-5

The final part of Job’s reply to God is mistranslated in
our version where it reads, . . therefore I despise my¬
self, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6, italics mine).
The words “despise” and “repent” have much deeper sig¬
nificance in the anicent Hebrew. Probably a better trans¬
lation is the same idea present in the Book of Acts when
Peter preached his sermon on the Day of Pentecost. At
the conclusion of the sermon, Luke writes, “. . . they were
cut to the heart . . .” (Acts 2:37). What Job says here
could be translated, “I have been cut to the heart and
have found myself now that I have you.”

This is similar to what happened to Isaiah when he
met the Lord, and cried, “ Woe is me! I am lost, for I am
a man of unclean lips . . .’ ” (Isaiah 6:5, italics mine).
When he realizes he has met the Christ, Peter exclaims,
“ ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ ” (Luke
5:8). Both Isaiah and Peter were “cut to the heart.”

For Job, though, there is a shock of recognition as he

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sees God and as he sees himself. Job is satisfied; he has
met the Lord. But even more profoundly, the Lord has
met Job and shown himself to him.

God Honors Job for Being Truthful. The next
surprise comes in God’s statement to Eliphaz, . . ‘My
wrath is kindled against you, and against your two
friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as
my servant Job has’ ” (Job 42:7). Here God honors Job as
a faithful servant who has spoken the truth. By contrast,
Job’s three friends have said things that were true in
some instances; but when put together, they were false.
Each of us needs to explore and understand this impor¬
tant principle. Many people who are participants in a
confrontation will say something to another person that
may be true, when taken by itself, yet it is false when
seen in its total context. Many of the hurtful statements
we throw at one another have this apparently righteous
content, from our “superior” point of view.

The Book of Job helps me realize just how pastorally
complicated it is to be a counselor and friend to the people
around me. I used to think that the only test of commu¬
nication was “Is it true?” But now I know it just isn’t that
simple. For example, when the Van Damm family, in
Amsterdam, heard a knock on their door in 1944 and
opened it, a member of the German Gestapo confronted
them: “We’ve heard that there is a Jewish family in your
house. Have you hidden a Jewish family?”

The truth was, at that very moment the family of Anne
Frank was hidden in an upstairs secret compartment of
the house. The Gestapo questions posed a dilemma for
the Van Damm family. Should they simply tell the truth?
As moral people, should they say, “Yes, there is a Jewish
family hidden upstairs”?

Surprised by Hope: Job, a Book of Prayer

105

On the surface, that affirmative answer was true, but it
would have been false on a deeper level, because the evil
intention of the occupation police force had to be weighed
upon a larger biblical and ethical balance scale. Poet
William Blake wrestled with this same idea when he
wrote, “A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the
lies you can invent.”

An additional fact emerges in the concluding drama of
the Job story as we catch the truth that the one who was
most afflicted had become in the end the one with the
deepest insight. Job, who on the surface seemed to have
reason to be the most angry at God, had in fact spoken
the greatest truth about God. This comes through clearly
in the Lord’s conversation with Eliphaz.

In the Job story it isn’t the people who appear to be the
best off and who seem to have the best relationship with
God who most often speak the truth. This fact can awaken
a new awareness to our own evaluations of others. We
must remain open to the idea that the person who is
unable to pray easily, who is unable to readily express
thanks to God, or who seems to be troubled by God may
in fact be expressing the deepest truth about and to God.

The Lord’s endorsement of Job should silence once and
for all the false disqualifers that a person with problems
cannot possibly have truth to share with someone else,
that the person in crisis should only receive advice, not
give it. Certainly, for those of us who have had our mo¬
ments of feeling desperately inadequate, this word of the
Lord to Job is good news, because in his times of greatest
crisis, Job had the word of truth for us.

Job Had Asked the Right Questions. One final
surprise appears in the closing words of Job’s story. When
God told Eliphaz that he was angry with him and his

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other two friends, because they hadn't spoken the truth,
but Job had, it comes through clearly that while God
hadn't given Job an answer to his questions, Job had
asked the right questions.

What is the meaning for us here? Job didn’t get an
answer to his question about suffering, but he got some¬
thing better! Job met God. While he didn’t get answers to
his deepest questions, he did have a divine encounter
with the One to whom we can direct all of our questions.

That is the key point of the entire Book of Job. Many
people have suffered in the centuries since Job had his
trials, and we must always question the injustices that
prevail in our world, but in reality no answers really
satisfy us. Instead, the Bible gives us something far bet¬
ter as it presents the Person who suffers with us. In this
way, Job received a down payment of the deeper answer
that was to come centuries later — the One who would
identify totally with Job.

All this leads me to say that I believe the Book of Job
is the most messianic of all the Old Testament books. At
the same time, it is the most profound of the prayer books,
because it is the story of a person who will not be satisfied
with anything less than a personal encounter with God.
Job the man and Job the book invite all who read the
story into an experience of vital prayer. Job is met by
God, and he meets God — his Friend. This ancient meet¬
ing prepares each of us who read the story of that en¬
counter to discover that Job's deepest yearning will be
fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, the One who will suffer
even more than Job did.

That is the power of prayer! Saint Paul described this
deeper meaning when he wrote to the Christians in
Philippi:

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107

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did
not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave, being born in human likeness. And being
found in human form, he humbled himself and be¬
came obedient to the point of death — even death on
a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

Jesus here identified with people even to death by Roman
crucifixion. This is the reason why Jesus is the One who
is most able to identify with us. We don’t have an answer
to the problem of suffering and evil, but we have Jesus
Christ, who suffered for and with us. We have the Man
for the crisis, and Job experienced the beginnings of that
hope.

The Happy Ending

The happy ending of the Book of Job (42:10-17) dis¬
pleases some Bible interpreters. Here we read that the
Lord restored Job’s fortunes. In fact, he received twice as
much as he had before. The writer adds, “The Lord
blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning;
and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand cam¬
els, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He
also had seven sons and three daughters” (42:12, 13).

Professor Francis Andersen observes about the conclu¬
sion of the Job story:

Some scholars have complained that the story is ru¬
ined by the happy ending. As if the author had
slipped back into the crude theology of punishments
and rewards which it was his aim in the discourse to

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discredit. . . . These gifts at the end are gestures of
grace, not rewards of virtue. It is an artistic, indeed
theological fitness, if not necessity, that Job’s vindi¬
cation be not just a personal and hidden reconcilia¬
tion with God in the secret of his soul, but also
visible, material, historical in terms of his life as
man. It was already a kind of resurrection in the
flesh as much as the Old Testament could know.

Job’s complete vindication had to wait until the res»
urrection of Lazarus and of a greater than Lazarus.2

At this point in my own Christian pilgrimage I am
convinced that from God Job received personal confirma¬
tion of what Saint Paul would later call grace: the sur¬
prise gift of love that assures us of God’s love. To
recognize this is to confront the very core of what prayer
is all about.

Prayer is not power; it is our relationship with the
Friend who has all power. This relationship has more
importance than answers to our particular questions.
Questions and answers are temporary at best; the rela¬
tionship is permanent. This does not downgrade our ques¬
tions about life, but it puts them into the larger and more
lasting context of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Part III

Praying in Jesus’ Name

Teach Us to Pray

Prayer is for amateurs; it is not an art form that has
more power in it if the pray-er learns and masters certain
secrets. It does not require ritual or religious skill, be¬
cause it is the language of relationship between ordinary
human beings and the Lord of Life.

The sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament invite us to
pray: “Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord . . .”
(Isaiah 1:18). Jesus Christ offers the same invitation to
the human family: “ ‘Ask and it will be given you; search,
and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for
you’ ” (Matthew 7:7).

The Model Prayer

In the New Testament we find the prayer Jesus taught
his followers for their daily use (Matthew 6:9-13).
Throughout the history of Christendom it has remained a

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vital prayer-song for believers, much used in Christian
worship. Many who have just entered the journey of faith
have used this prayer as a first expression of trust.

We who live in the twentieth century have what is
commonly called the Lord’s Prayer because of the witness
of the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Before giving this prayer to his first disciples, Jesus spoke
a warning and a promise. He bluntly warned his disciples
to say what they meant, when they prayed, and to say it
simply, with a few words. He also told them God would
hear. Such a warning and promise assure that our heav¬
enly Father knows us well.

All Jesus’ teaching about prayer made it clear that God
isn’t honored by senseless and monotonous repetition.
We don’t need to remind God of his existence and of his
greatness. Nor do we need to repeat our requests obses¬
sively. The God who knows us well knows our needs,
too.

The theological and psychological implications of Je¬
sus’ teaching about prayer are very important for us to¬
day. He has shown us that neither emotional nor
intellectual intensity guarantees truth. Voluminous
words and passionate feeling are not tests of reality. On
one occasion Martin Luther said our prayers should be
“brief, frequent, and intense.” Centuries before the great
Reformer spoke those words of wisdom, Jesus gave us his
magnificent model prayer: the Lord’s Prayer.

The writer of Matthew’s Gospel gives us these words of
Jesus:

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty
phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they
will be heard because of their many words. Do not be

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113

like them, for your Father knows what you need
before you ask him.

“Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed [central] be your name.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.”

Matthew 6:7-13

The prayer is brief, very personal, but not private or
singular. For example, you and I can sit or kneel side by
side, with each of us praying the same words — it is my
prayer, but at the same time it is yours. These words of
Jesus have an expansive and universal ring to them, yet
they honor human uniqueness and individuality. At the
same time this simple prayer stands in stark contrast to
the pattern prevalent in the first-century Roman and
Greek world.

The Pagan View of Prayer

Jesus had already warned his disciples to avoid “empty
phrases” and “many words,” because of the confusing ef¬
fect of the religious intoxication of the time. There was a
widespread belief in many different gods and goddesses,
along with, in certain cities of the empire, the mandated
worship of the Roman emperors. Greek and Roman my¬
thology was very complex and chaotic.

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The history of the city of Pergamum illustrates this
kind of religious complexity. Pergamum was a beautiful
Greek city, in the region of Mysia, in western Asia Mi¬
nor, a thriving first-century metropolis. In addition to
several temples set apart for emperor worship, it had
temples to Zeus; to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing;
to Athena; and to Dionysus. The citizens of Pergamum
were expected to worship at all of these.

In the Book of Revelation John refers to Pergamum as
the place “where Satan’s throne is,” possibly because it
was one of the oldest and most prominent centers of Ro¬
man emperor worship. Archaeological excavations of
the site give us a detailed account of the complex wor¬
ship patterns of the pagan religions that thrived in the
first century. Roman historian Publius Tacitus (a.d. 55-
120) admitted candidly that many first-century Romans
and Greeks were attracted to the Jewish religion be¬
cause of its lack of excessive language, shrines, and
complex rituals.

However, Tacitus himself preferred the drama and
showy spectacle of the Greco-Roman cultic religions; he
considered the Jewish faith “mean and tastless” because
of the absence of beautiful statues and stately shrines.
But the simplicity of the Jewish faith helped many men
and women of the first century to ask the important ques¬
tions about ultimate reality, and in the synagogue they
furthered their search. There they discovered the Old
Testament writings — the law, prophets, and songs that
prepared many of these searchers for the dramatic con¬
frontation with Jesus of Nazareth.

The prayers in the Jewish Scriptures were simple and
straightforward, unlike the incantations made at the
temple of Bacchus, Apollo, or Eleusis. Jewish prayers

Teach Us to Pray

115

held no magic terms, like the word abracadabra, which
was found in a first-century papyrus. No, the law, the
Psalms — prayer-songs — and prophetic writings of sacred
Scripture stood out in sharp contrast to the prayers and
poems of the first-century pagan Mediterranean reli¬
gions. Old Testament prayers and prayer-songs are de¬
lightfully uncomplicated and nonrepetitious, with no
promise of magical powers. Rather, they are the language
of dialogue and friendship.

Our New Testament Scriptures provide a fascinating
clue concerning the contrast between pagan and Chris¬
tian prayers. In the Book of Acts Luke vividly describes
a scene in Ephesus, when companions of the Apostle Paul
became victims of pagan religious frenzy. It seems the
Christian message they had preached there interfered
with the trade of those who made silver images of Diana
(Artemis), the fertility goddess whose temple was one of
the seven wonders of the ancient world and a great tour¬
ist attraction.

The indignant silversmiths instigated a riot in the
massive amphitheater for which Ephesus was famous.
Almost thirty thousand people were whipped up into a
religious frenzy as “for about two hours all of them
shouted in unison, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ ”
(Acts 19:28-35). Imagine! For two hours they chanted,
“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This kind of prayer
was hardly the language of friendship or dialogue. They
couldn’t think of anything else to say.

A Shocking Salutation

Understanding the pagan religious mind-set in the
first century and the Jewish attitude toward prayer and

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religious practices can help us in our own prayer pilgrim¬
age. When Jesus told his Jewish followers to pray, “Our
Father,” they would have been shocked at the use of his
word Father. First-century Judaism’s Pharisaic move¬
ment held to a very narrow interpretation of the third
commandment, “You shall not make wrongful use of the
name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit
anyone who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7). The Phar¬
isees refused to use the name for God, Yahweh, but in¬
stead held to indirect references as signs of awe and
reverence.

Consequently, our Lord’s informality and intimacy in
using “Our Father” represented a drastic departure from
what was accepted at the time. But Jesus wanted his
followers in all of time to understand that our prayers are
directed to the Lord who knows who we are and who
knows our needs. In addition, we are to pray to God in
language that acknowledges who he is — our godly Par¬
ent, our Father.

It is helpful for us to understand, too, that prayer as
practiced by the Jewish people in the first century was
very “kingdom oriented.” The Talmud went so far as to
assert, “That prayer in which there is no mention of the
kingdom of God is not a prayer.” In other words, instead
of being personal and warm, prayer had become institu¬
tionalized.

The discovery and translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls
underscores this fact. The scrolls include many prayers of
this period. Noted for their lack of warmth, they were
directed primarily toward technical concerns of the com¬
munity. Most of these community prayers relate to war
or victory or national success. One notable exception to
this pattern is found in the first century Kaddish. It is
very personal and much like the Our Father prayer:

Teach Us to Pray

117

May His great name be magnified and sancti¬
fied

in the world which he has created according to
his will. May his
sovereignty reign in your life
and in your days, and in the life of all the house
of Israel,

speedily and at a near time.

And say ye amen.

The word kingdom is an important one in the world of
both the Old and New Testaments. In reality, as it is used
in our Bible, it is a relationship word, not a geographical
or political one. Rarely does the Old Testament Hebrew
word for “kingdom” take on a spatial sense, because God’s
reign is neither spatial nor static. Rather, kingdom is a
dynamic idea; it denotes the reign of God in action.

The Intimate Language of Relationship

While the first-century Jews were not accustomed to
using the intimate and relational term Father in their
prayers, in using it, Jesus looked back to an earlier an¬
cient tradition that predated by centuries this highly ar¬
tificial reticence of the Pharisee movement. Even as
Yahweh is used 5,500 times in the Old Testament, so the
word Father is commonly used there to describe God’s
relationship to his people.

The ancient Song of Moses reminded the people of Is¬
rael “. . . Is not he [God] your father, who created you,
who made you and established you?” (Deuteronomy
32:6). Later both Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke of God as
“Father,” “For you are our father . . .” (Isaiah 63:16); “. . .
And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would

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Prayer — Between Friends

not turn from following me” (Jeremiah 3:19). Later the
prophet Malachi recorded God’s haunting question, “A
son honors his father, and servants their master. If then
I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a
master, where is the respect due me? says the Lord of
hosts to you . . .” (1:6). And finally, in the intertestamen-
tal Book of Wisdom, probably written sometime in the
first century b.c., we find a most important messianic
prophecy, “He calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father” (2:16).

In truth, Jesus fulfilled the expectation of the writer of
the Book of Wisdom, and according to the Gospel of John,
Jesus claimed this intimate term in the most complete
sense. In an argument with the Pharisees, he responded
to their question, “ ‘Where is your Father?’ ” “ ‘You know
neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would
know my Father also’ ” (8:19). According to the Gospel
writers, Jesus didn’t claim this relationship only for
himself — he invited his followers to approach God with
the same word.

Finally, in the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord made
use of the even more personal and affectionate Aramaic
expression Abba , when he prayed, “ ‘Abba, Father, for
you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet,
not what I want, but what you want’ ” (Mark 14:36).

The Apostle Paul affirms the same intimate and affec¬
tionate term when he wrote the Christians in Rome, “. . .
When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Ro¬
mans 8:15, 16). Indeed, Christians in all of time are in¬
vited to use these intimate and relational terms in
talking to God.

In the opening two words of the Lord’s Prayer — “Our
Father” — Jesus reestablished the felt sense of closeness

Teach Us to Pray

119

to God that was the mark of the prophets and the psalm¬
ists but had been suppressed in the life of Israel from the
time of the Maccabean revolt onward, especially by the
Pharisee movement. This means that from about 156 b.c.
to the time of our Lord’s ministry the prayers of Israel
had become increasingly specialized, formal, and king¬
dom oriented — less personal and less intimate. Instead
of breaking with tradition, Jesus actually turned our
eyes upon an even older tradition. It is interesting, isn’t
it, that what we sometimes think of as a new and fresh
personalism is really the exciting return to an ancient
friendliness. These first two words of the Lord’s Prayer
seal that profound, old, personal friendship between
God and his people.

Thy Kingdom, Lord

I vividly recollect an experience I had during my six
years of ministry as a pastor in the Philippines (1964-
1970). On a particular afternoon, when I was with a stu¬
dent group at a week-long retreat at Camp John Hay, the
United States Air Force Recreational Base, playing with
them and my own small children on the beautiful lawns,
I heard the sound of jet planes overhead. I looked up and
saw the unmistakable jet trails of six B-52 bombers as
they streaked across the deep-blue tropical sky. I knew
they were on their way to carry out a bombing mission
over Vietnam.

When the planes were out of sight and sound, I looked
out across the lawns again at our young people, still im¬
mersed in their football game. A vast uneasiness and a
profound feeling of helplessness clutched at my conscious¬
ness as I realized just how impermanent everything is in
a world caught in the grips of a regional war fought with

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devastating weapons. In such uneasy times, would the
Philippines escape the havoc of war? Where would the
carefree young people out there on that grass field be a
year from now? Two years? Five years?

Your Kingdom Come

That afternoon I prayed the prayer our Lord taught his
disciples, but the opening sentence became more urgent
and important to me than ever before, “Your kingdom
come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Admittedly, the “kingdoms” of our present world are
fragile. They shake and tremble and reel under threat of
war, the calamities of nature, and all the uncertainties
that plague our existence. So it becomes terribly impor¬
tant for our lives to be grounded in the certain founda¬
tion. How important it is for God’s rule and will to be at
the foundations of our lives.

After Jesus teaches us to address God as “our Father,”
he teaches us to acknowledge God’s holiness and look for
his reign upon our earth. As we have seen, in the New
Testament the kingdom of God is relational, not territo¬
rial. It is where the King and his subjects — the people of
God — are.

By his sovereign decision the King of all creation also
created the earth we live on. He sustains it, redeems it,
and will fulfill its destiny. Now, in our Lord’s Prayer, he
invites us to say in effect, “O God, we seek first of all your
presence as Lord.” Or to put it another way, “O God,
grant your reign as the solid ground beneath everything
else.” It is a prayer for the eternal God— the Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end— to be the one place,
the solid ground, on which we may stand and build our
lives.

Thy Kingdom, Lord

123

The Right Place to Begin

At the beginning of my studies of the Lord’s Prayer, it
seemed to me then that it would make better sense to put
this petition at the close of the prayer. There is an escha¬
tological “coming of Christ the King” feeling about the
language of the kingdom that would have been, I
thought, more psychologically appropriate at the conclu¬
sion of a series of practical requests. This aspiration for
the Lord of all history would then surround the earthy
and urgent requests for survival, forgiveness, and protec¬
tion from evil.

Now I can see how right it was for Jesus to make this
the first request in the prayer, because apart from this
foundation— this beginning place — we have no hope or
reason to pray. Contrary to my original preferences, as I
came to see later, our Lord rightly gave us instructions
that before we pray for anything else, we ask, “Your king¬
dom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
We are to pray for God’s presence before praying for any¬
thing else. This is psychologically and theologically
sound. If we are to live and work in relationship with
other people and become all that God wants us to be as
his creation, our first priority must center on the pres¬
ence of God as the ground or foundation beneath every¬
thing else.

Our Most Profound Anxiety

This persistent worry about “the ground beneath
everything” — our foundation — is the most profound anx¬
iety known to humankind. It is amply illustrated by the
picture and fear of a little girl who had been lost and had
wandered for hours in the park but who was now safe at
the park police station. Yet she continues to sob uncon-

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trollably with intense fear because the earth or the foun¬
dation beneath her very existence- — represented by her
mother and father — has been lost.

From all outward appearances, the police station scene
is safe. The little girl grips her ice-cream cone, the offic¬
ers are friendly and solicitous, the TV set is tuned to a
children’s program. Yet the shudder of paralyzing fear
that still grips this little girl stems from a primeval anx¬
iety about “the ground beneath everything.”

This fear — this ache — remains as real in these closing
years of the twentieth century as it was in the Mediter¬
ranean world of the first century. Even though much
about our world setting seems impressive and solid, the
ache persists in spite of all the human schemes to divert
our attention from it. The gnawing fear eats at the very
vitals of our existence in spite of our efforts to repress it.
Materialism and spiritualism are both in their own ways
desperate forms of denial of the real fear. In the words of
Blaise Pascal, “We cling . . . but nothing stays for us.”

But Jesus Christ taught his hearers — and us— to pray
a very basic prayer. In my words, this is what he said,
“Before you pray for anything else, pray this, ‘O God,
grant first of all a solid ground — a firm foundation —
beneath everything.’ ”

I believe the heart of every person who has ever lived
cries this, and it is the first request in the Lord’s Prayer,
“Your kingdom come. . . .” With these words we pray for
the foundation that is strong enough to bear the weight
of everything — the wars that tear apart families and
nations— it is also the prayer for little children lost in the
park.

A Certain Basis for Optimism. Before we pray
for bread or for forgiveness, we pray that the ground of

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125

God’s character and reign will form the foundation be¬
neath our lives. Jesus Christ is not only the Earth’s Re¬
deemer; he is the Earth’s Sustainer. Consequently, this is
our most urgent prayer, because it faces up to the shak¬
ing of the foundations. Paul Tillich, the theologian-
philosopher, once said, “One may face many things
cynically . . . but there is one thing we cannot be cynical
about, and that is the shaking of the foundations of ev¬
erything.”

Theologically this means Jesus teaches us to live in
what we call the present by the fact that he himself
boundaries history at its origin, at its center, and at its
end. The Lord’s Prayer reaches out to the future, yet is
anchored profoundly in the past acts of God and in his
faithfulness here and now. Since our Lord invites us to
pray this prayer, we have confidence that he will grant it.

Practically this implies that we are given a basis for
genuine optimism — for the enduring hope concerning the
separate parts of our lives, as well as the ground that is
steady beneath everything.

One Day at a Time

The second movement of the prayer that Jesus gave us
is contained in one simple and short sentence, “Give us
this day our daily bread.” Here we have the essence of
directness and practical immediacy.

The word translated “daily” is from the Greek word
epiousios. This particular word is found only twice in our
New Testament Scriptures — here and in Luke's account
of the giving of the prayer (Luke 11:3). This word usage
is found in only one other first-century citation — a list of
business expenses. Its precise meaning is a bit uncertain;
however, perhaps our best clue as to the sense of the word
is found in a sentence by the wisdom writer, “. . . give me
neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I
need” (Proverbs 30:8). This common and earthy request
for today’s food or for needful food is the sense of the
Greek word epiousios as found in the first-century ex¬
pense document.

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The majority of linguistic and biblical scholars accept
the translation of epiousios as “daily,” as we have it in
our Bibles. Consequently, Jesus here invites us to share
with God our Father our concerns for the very earthy,
basic aspects of human existence — the physical elements
we need for survival. Notice that in this short and simple
prayer request Jesus runs counter to the aspirations of
two worldviews: the materialistic and the spiritualistic.

The Materialistic Worldview

Materialism is the iron embrace of our world; it de¬
scribes a life-style in which people gain meaning for life
from material things. Materialism accepts the fallacy
that what we own gives meaning to life. Its philosophy
judges people by the size and appearance of their home,
the make and horsepower of their automobile, the size of
their bank account, and the neighborhood in which they
live; and materialism measures people’s worth by their
vocation, along with country club membership.

By contrast the people of God understand that the ma¬
terial ingredients important and even essential to life are
gifts of a God who cares about us and everything involved
in making it through each of our twenty-four-hour days.
We don’t receive meaning from these ingredients or gifts
as such— instead our meaning comes from the whole of
life as provided by a loving God.

In this petition Jesus places every material experience
and possession into a daily context. Each day we need
bread, because like every other part of God’s creation,
bread has its limitations. Food only sustains and nour¬
ishes our bodies for a finite time. There is a natural,
built-in limitation to every substance, food, or treasure of
the earth. The theological implication of these words is

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129

that when the meaning of our lives becomes founded on
any aspect of God’s creation, it is rooted in too small a
place. Instead, a larger and more magnificent whole gives
meaning to life.

When he makes this petition, Jesus gives meaning to
the logical and real need of people to survive physically.
Jesus neither discounts nor treats this essential part of
our lives with contempt. Rather, he treats it as an ingre¬
dient of the whole. Our daily bread, along with the other
essentials of our human existence, takes on meaning not
of itself but from its Source.

The dangerous flaw of capitalism or communism as an
end in itself is in the temptation toward a materialistic
devotion to the physical ingredients of life as a whole,
instead of devotion to the eternal Source of it all.

In this prayer-petition Jesus puts the physical ingre¬
dients of life into a daily context. We need the renewal of
food daily, and this daily need is an illustration of the
true nature of all that makes up the whole of our physical
needs. Each individual part of our physical life is limited
and not final in itself— only God stands beyond the
boundary of “our daily bread.”

Freedom From Material Tyranny

When we truly mean what we say in this second peti¬
tion of the Lord’s Prayer, we are set free from the tyranny
of our “daily bread” and of any and all other possessions.
Once this happens, we can become stewards of the whole
of life, as God has planned. When this prayer becomes the
actual conviction of our lives, we are not as possessive
and obsessive as before — not as edgy or desperate or su¬
perstitious.

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Further, we must see that this prayer petition in no
way includes a protest against hard work for bread or an
argument against responsibility toward our good earth.
The awareness of stewardship, which is an ingredient
of this prayer petition, increases our respect for “the fruit
of the earth,” because we see its good origin as a mean¬
ingful investment of God’s design and intention for the
Earth.

The materialist, on the other hand, is tempted toward
a careless and presumptuous ownership and even wor¬
ship of the earth and what it produces. But God created
none of the ingredients of the earth for our devotion and
worship. For this reason we worship neither “the croco¬
dile nor the sun.” Instead we honor this place we call
Earth because of its good origin and its goal. We anchor
our stewardship in God’s ultimate intention for our earth
as described by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ro¬
man Christians, “. . . The creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of
the glory of the children of God” (8:21). This prayer-
petition is a frontal challenge to materialism, because it
directs our attention to the spiritual Source of things,
great and small — toward the goodness and faithfulness of
a friendly God whose loving care is with us always. Noth¬
ing else in all of the universe deserves our worship, but
everything gains in significance and importance and
wonder when God is worshiped!

The Spiritualistic Worldview

Even as this brief prayer sentence offers a challenge to
every form of materialism, it comes as an abrupt surprise
to a spiritualistic worldview. Very likely a pious spiritu¬
alist would have composed an entirely different prayer. It

One Day at a Time

131

could well have gone something like, “O God, help us to
have supremacy of spirit over the body so that we will no
longer need the daily bread of physical and emotional
support from the material world of things and people — to
the end that our spirits may soar!”

Many people would prefer a more “spiritual” prayer to
the earthy one Jesus gave us. Their reasons would have
gone something like this: “Prayer should lift our sights
way above crass and earthy concerns.” In addition, such
pray-ers would consider the word “daily” to be an affront
to the spiritual quest of the human spirit. After all, isn’t
the spiritual goal of the human spirit to avoid — if at all
possible — any and every tie to the daily, “ordinary,” and
limited life so common among “nonspiritual” folks? For
the spiritualist, “Give us our daily cake” would be a far
better and nobler prayer. After all, ordinary bread, the
kind consumed by hungry ordinary people, is so very com¬
monplace!

Interestingly, certain of the early interpreters of the
“Our Father” prayer fell into this spiritualistic trap be-
cause they felt that “ordinary” bread was too worldly for
spiritual folks. Tertullian, Cyprian, and even Augustine
were of the opinion that Jesus must have been inviting
his disciples to pray for something more than just ordi¬
nary bread. Augustine saw this as a prayer for “the in¬
visible bread of the word of God.” But Augustine’s
spiritualizing our prayer for bread misses the point
entirely — it certainly doesn’t make us more spiritual.

Saint Jerome, another early church father (a.d. 374-
420), Christian ascetic, and biblical scholar, advanced
this same view in his Latin translation of the Bible, when
he translated the word epiousios, “supersubstantial.” We
understand now that there is no basis for this transla¬
tion, but Jerome, along with Augustine and the others,

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was swayed by an earnest desire for a “higher” spiritual
meaning for a simple sentence. In doing this, they
adopted a luxurious rather than a lean interpretation of
this petition. In matters like this, the wisest rule for bib¬
lical interpretation has always been the guiding princi¬
ple “lean is better than luxurious.”

In this petition of our Lord’s Prayer we see that Jesus
Christ fully understood both the material and the spiri¬
tual quest of people. Certainly we need not play loose
with the wording in order for the prayer to be more spir¬
itual and profound; it is already profound in its direct¬
ness and simplicity.

Some Final Questions

It seems to me at this point that it will be helpful to
look at a couple of final questions related to this petition
of the prayer: Does our belief that daily life is a gift from
God make us less realistic, less creative, and responsible
toward ourselves and our earth? Wouldn’t we be more
creative if we were more autonomous and not so slavishly
dependent upon God?

Free to Be Stewards of God’s Creation

In response to these questions, I firmly believe that our
God-given role as stewards and not owners of any part of
the earth is more creative than either the materialistic or
the spiritualistic view of life. I also believe that the Bible
calls us to a discipleship that involves just the right de¬
gree of limitation to prevent us from setting ourselves up
as gods; it prevents any part of God’s creation from be¬
coming an idol of our affections and/or the specter of our
fears.

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133

God, our beloved Father and loving Friend, has set us
free from the two equally terrifying bondages of materi¬
alism and spiritualism so that we are free to act and be at
work in a healthy relationship with the real world around
us. This means that we are free to pray for daily help in
our periods of health crisis, while utilizing the latest tech¬
niques in medicine. It also means that as we pray for
daily food we work hard to support ourselves and our
families so that we have food to eat and homes to shelter
us. But as we exercise this God-given stewardship we can
be under no false illusions about ourselves, as if we were
autonomous. This second prayer petition takes us on to a
better way of life — a daily way.

Forgiveness

Our Lord’s Prayer continues with a third petition,
“ ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
debtors.’ ” Following the conclusion of the prayer itself
Jesus expands briefly on this petition as he adds, “ ‘For if
you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ ’’(Mat¬
thew 6:14, 15).

This part of the prayer basically assumes that we are
all guilty and all need forgiveness. The prayer doesn’t
read, “And those sinister ones among you who have
sinned should pray, ‘Forgive us our debts.’ ” No, Jesus is
saying that each one of us is in need of forgiveness.

Forgiveness: A Fundamental Need

Forgiveness is the most fundamental need of people
everywhere, and in the sense of this prayer, this is some-

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thing we cannot do either for ourselves or others. Only
what German theologian and World War II martyr Die¬
trich Bonhoeffer described as “cheap grace” is available
to be self-administered and comfortably under our own
control. Real forgiveness is an experience of grace, and
we are never able to control or personally manage grace.

It is fortunate for us in every way that neither our
religious technique nor our desire for power can bring
God's forgiveness under our control. We come closest to
the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ at this profound
moment in the Lord's Prayer because we are at the place
of agreement in which we humbly submit ourselves to
the love of God that is able to reconcile us and resolve
every estrangement that distorts and confuses our lives.
And we ask for God’s help for this reconciliation in the
simple prayer, “ ‘forgive us our debts' ” — our sins. Jesus
Christ himself encourages us to ask for this help, and
that makes all the difference in the world.

The Greek word translated “forgive” in this part of the
prayer is aphiemi. It is both interesting and illuminating
to discover that this same Greek word is translated
“abandoned” in Revelation 2:4 and “leave” in John 14:27.
Paul uses this same word in 1 Corinthians 7:11, where it
is translated “divorce.” In bringing these various usages
together, we see that the literal meaning of the word
aphiemi is “to leave behind, to cancel, to abandon” — all of
which are involved in the word “forgiveness” in the Lord's
Prayer. In other words, God leaves behind and cancels
our sins.

The word “debts” is an accurate translation of the word
used in this part of the prayer (Matthew 6:12), but it is
translated “trespasses” in Matthew 6:15. In a practical
sense we owe God lives of obedience and righteousness,
yet we keep defaulting. Consequently, “debts” becomes a

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137

metaphor for “sins” — the word Luke uses in his version of
the prayer (Luke 11:4). Combining the Matthew and
Luke wording of this petition, we have three different
words — “debts,” “trespasses,” and “sins.” Each describes
the person who has fallen short in a harmful way, not
only hurting the self but others as well.

A Prayer — Not a Bargain

This petition, “ ‘Forgive us our debts ...,”’ has two
parts; it is a prayer and not a bargain. Notice, it does not
say, “Lord, watch how generous we have been toward
those who have offended us. Now please be generous
toward us in view of these achieved credits that have
accumulated to our benefit.” Instead, the sense of the
prayer goes something like this, “Lord, please grant us
forgiveness — something we know about and appreciate
from our human experiences with one another — and help
us to share the forgiveness we receive with those nearby
who need our forgiveness.”

In Jesus’ explanatory words immediately following the
prayer (Matthew 6:14, 15), he gives us the mandate to
experience fully the ethical implications of forgiveness: If
we forgive, then God has completed forgiveness and its
good result in our lives. We don’t set the rules, Christ
does. This disqualifies the kind of praying we hear all too
often, “God, if you’ll just get me this job — or resolve the
conflict with my parents or rescue me from this crisis —
then I’ll serve you faithfully and do wonderful things for
your kingdom.”

This petition of our Lord’s Prayer asks for the help of
God’s grace; it is not an arrangement quid pro quo. In an
earlier reference we saw how the classical Greek word for
pray, euchomai, carries within it the sense of “a vow” or

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even a bargain. But prayer in the Bible is radically dif¬
ferent. Both the Old and New Testaments clearly make
the point that our prayers to God our Father are not vows
or bargains. Rather, prayer brings our whole selves into
God’s presence.

C. S. Lewis has captured the profound implications of
this truth in the way he portrays Aslan’s relationship
with the children in the seven stories of The Chronicles of
Narnia. In The Magician's Nephew , Digory discovers the
immense creative power of Aslan, the great, golden Lion,
Son of the Emperor from Beyond the Sea. But a deep
worry rests heavily upon Digory’s heart as he remembers
the grave illness of his mother, who is back in England,
while Digory has been caught up in his wondrous adven¬
tures in Narnia. The boy’s worry is heightened because
he does not understand the mysterious rules of Aslan’s
Narnia, whereby time spent there does not encroach on
time in Digory’s real world of England.

Just at that point, Aslan calls to Digory in order to
send him on a long and dangerous mission. Lewis nar¬
rates this encounter:

“ 'Son of Adam’, said Aslan. 'Are you ready. . . ?’

‘Yes’, said Digory. He had had for a moment some
wild idea of saying ‘I’ll try to help you if you’ll prom¬
ise to help about my mother’, but he realized in time
that the Lion was not at all the sort of person one
could try to make bargains with. But when he had
said, ‘Yes’ ... a lump came in his throat and tears in
his eyes and he blurted out: ‘But please, please —
won’t you — can’t you give me something that will
cure Mother?’ ”x

That is precisely the Bible’s teaching on prayer: We are
to blurt out our true feelings, our deepest needs, and

Forgiveness

139

bring them to the Lord who has invited us to do that very
thing. But prayer is in no sense a bargain. When Digory
blurted out his earnest request, it was just that, nothing
more and nothing less. His request is in every sense even
more daring than a bargain. He is coming into the pres¬
ence of Aslan with his whole and real self and with his
deepest care.

When we pray, we risk ourselves to God, and in that
daring experience we made the discovery of his presence
and of his care for us and our world. It happens when we
dare to blurt out our deepest questions. It happened for
Digory in a strange way on that afternoon in Narnia. He
looked at the face of Aslan, and he saw a great tear in the
eye of the golden Lion.

A New Beginning in Spite of Scars

Several years ago, at a National Youth Worker's Con¬
vention, I met a young man who had spent three years of
his life in my city, Berkeley, California. During that time
he had lived as a nomadic youth on Telegraph Avenue.
Toward the end of that period he had met a Christian
family from the First Presbyterian Church, where I am
now pastor. He told me how this family had befriended
him and how, finally, through their witness, he was con¬
verted and put his trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and
Lord.

His life was radically rearranged as he experienced the
healing love of Christ following his conversion. He be¬
came reconciled with his parents and returned home to
the East Coast. He then finished school, was later mar¬
ried and started his own family. Now, some six years
later, he was a highly motivated man in his thirties, a
husband and father. But as he concluded his story, he

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said something that made a deep impression on me, “You
know, a large part of those three years that I wandered
up and down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley are just a
blur in my memory. I have only shadowy recollections of
those years, but I have some scars on my arms that prove
I was there.”

This young man had experienced a loving and friendly
heavenly Father's forgiveness, as Jesus promised in this
prayer. That forgiveness didn't mean he could relive
those three lost years or that the needle marks from those
confused days and nights would disappear. But his past
has been resolved and reconciled by the grace of the Sav¬
ior. He doesn't have the privilege of returning to the past
and redoing it. He can't recapture the innocence that
preceded his Telegraph Avenue existence, but through
his repentance and Christ's forgiveness, he has made a
new beginning right in the middle of his life journey.

The promise and the experience of forgiveness are quite
different from our early innocence, and certainly Jesus
does not offer his disciples a promise of innocence in this
prayer; the harm of bad mistakes and poor choices do not
disappear completely. Inevitably, scars remain, and
missed chances are still missed chances, but through the
reconciliation and healing of Christ we are able to make
new beginnings. For this radical newness of reconciliation
Jesus invites us to pray.

Forgiveness Conditions

Now, we notice conditions in this particular prayer pe¬
tition. The prayer creates a connection between our ex¬
perience of forgiveness and our inescapable obligation to
the people around us. The second part of this petition has
challenged not only the pray-ers of this prayer but those

Forgiveness

141

who have attempted to interpret it and understand its
full meaning.

As we’ve seen, following the conclusion of this prayer,
Jesus added a sentence that strengthened the impor¬
tance of the second half of this petition, “For if you for¬
give others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, nei¬
ther will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew
6:14, 15).

It comes through clearly here that Jesus wisely under¬
stands that his disciples will not be living in an ideal
setting, free from the threat of sin and its harmful con¬
sequences. At the same time it is clear that Christian
disciples will bear the brunt of sinful actions directed
toward them from other people.

The second part of the forgiveness petition illuminates
the connectedness of inner forgiveness and outer behav¬
ior as a result of that forgiveness. It is highly significant
that Jesus places this ethical demand upon us as disci¬
ples in the setting of our own experience of forgiveness
and the grace that accompanies it.

In this part of the prayer we have the classic portrayal
of what theologians describe as “evangelical ethics” or
what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “formation ethics.” It is
the ethical mandate that emerges out of fullness rather
than from scolding demands or the grief of guilt. To put
it plainly — we are first forgiven by God, and then we are
commanded to express that same forgiveness toward
those around us. It isn’t that we invent forgiveness from
within our own resources but that we share the forgive¬
ness we have already received.

Martin Luther added more to our understanding of this
prayer-petition when he said, “See, this is the twofold
forgiveness; one internal in the heart, that clings alone

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in the word of God; and one external, that breaks forth
and assures us that we have the internal one.” Now we
see that when we forgive other people, by this very act we
have the positive assurance that our own forgiveness by
Jesus Christ is real. In other words, we have exercised
grace when we have forgiven and have found it more
than sufficient. Therefore, even in the commands of Jesus
we find the good news of Jesus. Practically this means
that if we want to be more certain of God’s love for us
personally and uniquely, we should risk sharing God’s
love with others more often, and in so doing we would see
just how real that love is.

The Lord of the Prayer

I believe Dr. W. D. Davies suggested that the words of
the Sermon on the Mount will lead us ultimately to the
One who spoke them. In terms of this particular prayer-
petition, when we meet the Lord who spoke these words
and who taught this prayer, we meet the One who makes
forgiveness possible, because Jesus himself fulfilled the
prayer. In following this line of thought, we see that for¬
giveness is possible because of the identification of Jesus
Christ with us — without him there would be no forgive¬
ness. Each of the requests in the Lord’s Prayer reaches
out toward the kingly reign of Christ, and this request —
“Forgive us our debts” — also reaches out for resolution of
a complicated moral and spiritual crisis in our lives by
the Lord of the kingdom himself.

So tightly interconnected is the crisis of human sinful¬
ness with who we are and what we fear, the desires that
motivate life, and the real harm that we have become
involved in that the resolution of such a crisis takes the
total help of the One who created us. The prayer for for-

Forgiveness

143

giveness asks for that total help, because the power of
that help is so profoundly far-reaching that it is under¬
standable how this request should break out from the
forgiveness we have received and be expressed by us to¬
ward those around us.

God Is for Us!

Swiss theologian Karl Barth spoke of forgiveness as
the power of powers — “the discovery that God is for me.”
The personal experience of forgiveness is so radical that
it alters everything — my understanding of other people,
my behavior, and the way I know myself. Like a great
banner of peace, forgiveness signals a new chance for
hope in that ancient battleground of the soul. It brings
God’s peace into that soul at war, with the healing balm
of God’s wondrous gift of a new beginning.

Jesus’ marvelous story of the Prodigal Son gives us a
profoundly moving example of forgiveness. In what some
have called the greatest short story ever written, our
Lord tells of a wayward son who breaks his father’s heart
by demanding his inheritance, leaving home, and becom¬
ing involved in a sinful way of life. Finally, things be¬
come so bad that he becomes desperate, “ ‘. . . How many
of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to
spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go
to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned
against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to
be called your son; treat me like one of your hired
hands” ’ ” (Luke 15:17-19).

But the forgiving father would have none of that. In¬
stead, he dressed the returning son in a new robe and put
a ring on his finger, killed the fatted calf and threw a
party — a grand celebration (15:20-24).

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By contrast, James Oglethorpe (1696-1785), the stern
and exacting British general and founder of the colony of
Georgia, once said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” Wes¬
ley’s reply was classic, “Then I hope, Sir, that you never
sin!”

The poor general is like the lonely elder brother in the
Prodigal Son story, who, when he heard the celebration
noise from his wayward brother’s party “ ‘became angry
and refused to go in’ ” because he wouldn’t forgive. Such
self-righteous arrogance! But again, the loving father
went out to find the older son and said, “ ‘ “Son, you are
always with me, and all that is mine is yours” ’ ” ( 15:25—
32). With those gracious words the father invited his self-
righteous and lonely older son to agree with him about
forgiveness. This meant that the father himself had to
bear the alienation of both the younger and the elder
son— such is the costly mystery behind this forgiveness
that Jesus invites us to discover as we pray, “ \ . . Forgive
us our debts. . . .’ ”

Total Help for Total Need

In both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke the Lord’s
Prayer ends with one final request, “ ‘And do not bring
us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one’ ”
(Matthew 6:13). The familiar King James translation of
this reads, “And lead us not into temptation. . . ,” and
other translations have it, “Do not put us to the
test. . . .” The Greek word for “temptation,” “test,” or
“time of trial” is peirao; another comparable English
word for it would be “peril.” In other words, “Lead us
not into perils too great for us to bear, and protect us
from the evil one.”

The word “temptation” is a fierce and frightening one
in both English and in the language of the Bible. Peirao
means to destroy by degrees, to place someone under the
peril of intense, gradual stress. In some cases, it may
mean “to test,” in a positive sense. But such usage does
not lessen the frightening aspect of peirao , when it ap-

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pears in a hostile context. In those instances translators
use the English word “tempt” or “temptation.”

To understand what the Scriptures mean, we need to
look closely at the context in which peirao appears. Does
it intend and imply healthy testing that moves the Chris¬
tian toward maturity and hope or destructive tempta¬
tion, leading to despair and loss of hope? If it implies
destructive temptation, a devious and deceptive quality
is always contextually attached to the word. When used
in a positive sense, the word is a logical part of a disci-
pleship experience and growth. Usually, though, in life
situations we find it hard to know at first just what kind
of testing we are experiencing.

The Peril of Temptation

Temptation’s peril is quite different from the peril we
experience from an outright frontal attack by an an¬
nounced adversary. Temptation produces a much more
subtle stress, because it encourages its victims to act in a
self-destructive way.

A vivid illustration of the peril of temptation appears
in the book A Separate Peace , by John Knowles. As an
initiation stunt, older boys force some younger, less phys¬
ically strong ones to jump from a high, overhanging tree
into a river. The jump is designed to place stress on the
younger boys, especially one particular boy; it is way
beyond their athletic competence. Because of this, the
jump is not a contest as such but a temptation— the goal
is not to test skill but to incite fear and harm. The
younger boys risk the jump simply because they desire to
please and be accepted by those they mistakenly thought
were their friends.

This is temptation in the rawest sense. To the unso¬
phisticated onlooker it may appear the tempted person is

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purposely involved in a self-destructive act. But in real¬
ity a tempter has lured that person into a bad choice or
decision. In most instances temptation doesn't aim to
cause physical harm, but has as its goal psychological
and spiritual entrapment. For example, a person may
ask another a tempting question, not because he or she
desires an answer, but to deceive the other — indicating a
hostile intent.

Spiritual Conditioning

We can only know whether peirao is used in the hostile
sense or in the positive sense if we carefully examine the
motivational context of each usage. In the positive sense,
the stressful experience purposes to strengthen our lives.
For example, the rigorous conditioning a football coach
puts his team through prepares them for an opening
game. The coach's goal is not to harm the players but to
condition them so they can handle the physical and emo¬
tional stresses of the game.

This lay behind Jesus’ seemingly impossible instruc¬
tions to his disciples to provide food for the huge crowd
that had stayed with them for so long. When the disciples
suggested to Jesus that he should send the people home,
because they were hungry, he replied, “ ‘They need not go
away; you give them something to eat' ” (Matthew 14:16).
Now, Jesus didn't make the impossible suggestion that
his disciples provide food for five thousand people to em¬
barrass and discredit them. He did it to strengthen them,
so they would be better able to meet the challenges of the
future.

This particular event is recorded in each of the four
Gospels. In telling the story, the Gospel of John words it:
“When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming to-

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ward him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy
bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test [ peirao ]
him, for he himself knew what he was going to do” (John
6:5, 6, italics mine). Philip immediately answered that
six months’ wages wouldn’t be enough money. But John
continues, . . One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Pe¬
ter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has
five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among
so many people?’ ” (John 6:7-9).

At that point Jesus took the boy’s lunch and blessed it;
the entire crowd was fed, and the leftovers filled twelve
baskets. What an awesome display of Jesus’ power! This
“test” didn’t harm or make the disciples fearful; instead,
they were permanently strengthened. Jesus, like a good
football coach, put his team under a healthy stress in
order to make them stronger and make them learn more
about who Jesus really is.

Temptation’s Hidden Agenda

Temptation is altogether different. It uses stress to de¬
moralize the tempted person or persons. Outside, the
“temptation stress” and the “test” stress may appear the
same, but temptation’s motives, whether subtle or bla¬
tant, have one purpose — to cause harm and destruction.
The hidden agenda becomes clear: According to the Bi¬
ble, temptation is always evil. James makes this abun¬
dantly clear, “No one when tempted, should say, ‘I am
being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil
and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s
own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then when that
desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when it is
fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my
beloved” (James 1:13-16). Indeed, God doesn’t test us in
order to break us. Instead, like a good coach, he disci-

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plines us to build us up for the endurance of the game of
life.

The devil tempts. In fact, he is called the tempter (Mat¬
thew 4:3). This means that if for any reason we play out
that destructive role toward other people or toward any
part of God’s creation, we have assumed the strategy of
the evil one. Any question or statement intended to harm
another person is an act of temptation, regardless of how
pure or innocent the outward appearance. It originates in
hell, and God will judge it for what it is, not by how it
appears.

Such evil is at the core of such public or private events
as bullfights, cockfights, or pit-bull fights. In each case,
under the masquerade of “sport,” persons have created a
disruptive setting, a cruel hoax, into which they place
these animals. After fatally tempting the animals, hu¬
man participants and spectators — the tempters — watch
them respond in panic. These creatures are a part of God’s
good creation, and we as humans have been entrusted by
God to be their stewards. I firmly believe that just as God
will judge us for sin against other people, he will judge us
for these “games” of terror.

It is important that we understand the two kinds of
stress, because some human stress experiences are harm¬
ful, while others are healthy. We need to understand the
all-important differences between the healthy conviction
of the Holy Spirit and the temptation of the devil. For
example, if a line of questioning or an experience leads
me to conclude that I am not only sinful but without
hope, the Holy Spirit has not convicted me of sin. Instead,
the evil one has tempted me, encouraging me to distrust
God’s love and faithfulness.

The conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit always leads
toward the Redeemer, toward hope. Repentance and re-

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demption are the end results of the work of the Holy
Spirit; the stress the spirit of God puts upon us works in
our favor.

Temptation may also stimulate a way of thinking that
leads away from God. I may be tempted to feel personally
righteous and without any need of forgiveness or grace.
But this results in lonely isolation. I may be tempted to
despair. Each of these is the work of the temptation of
evil. Both lead toward aloneness, loss of freedom, and
distrust in the faithfulness of God. In the one case, I don’t
think I need God because of a false perception of my
greatness. In the other, I’m afraid to need God, because I
accept the false idea that my own sinfulness placed my
life outside his keeping care.

Free to Choose. Jesus Christ, the One who en¬
dured temptation, now teaches us to pray, “ ‘And do not
bring us to the time of trial [lead us not into tempta¬
tion].’ ” Clearly with these words Jesus encourages us to
pray that we be spared the deceptive stresses that are too
great for us to handle. In truth, Jesus encourages his
disciples to request help from God against every subtle
attack of temptation.

The prayer realistically assesses the existence of temp¬
tation’s threats. Each of us can tell stories about their
peril. God has granted us the ability to make choices, and
the tempter tries to destroy that freedom by leading us to
use it badly. Because our Lord does not rob us of freedom
in our discipleship journey, temptation remains a real
possibility at every point along the way.

The good news is that we know Jesus Christ himself
stands with us in the face of every temptation, and he
understands every danger posed to us by temptation.
Even more, Jesus has invited his disciples — including
us — to ask help from the Father in combating temptation
of any and every kind.

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The Origin of Temptation

The parallel request, “ . . but rescue us from the evil

one/ ” reminds us that the origin of temptation is Satan.
Consequently, this prayer-petition bears witness to our
complex and real freedom. Temptation is our problem
because we have the privilege and responsibility that
enables us to make decisions on major matters. For ex¬
ample, a tree isn’t tempted to choose against good soil; a
cat isn’t tempted when a bird is exposed to its leap, be¬
cause the cat is unaware of the bird’s rights and dignity.
Only human beings make such value decisions. The dra¬
matic freedom that God has given to us carries with it the
real problems of choice.

Christian Warfare

The biblical writers take evil’s existence seriously, not
only in the sense of human failure, but also in the larger
context of this prayer-petition. The biblical witness
makes it clear that God, in his sovereign wisdom, has
provided for human freedom so that we are able to choose
against his good will for us. In the same way Scripture
affirms God has allowed a freedom that results in the
existence of evil at the spiritual level of reality. The
Scripture treats with complete seriousness the existence
of this greater evil called the devil, Satan, Apollyon, the
tempter, and the evil one.

Saint John Chrysostom (a.d. 3477-407), an early
church father and patriarch of Constantinople, stated
that in praying, “. . . rescue us from the evil one,” we
signal once and for all that we are engaged as Christians
in a battle against all forms of evil — a battle that knows
no truce. In this battle we need God’s resources, because
behind all evil is “the evil one.” This means that there

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are many different kinds of evil— there are bad choices
made by human beings and the wider crisis of dehuman¬
ization in the social realm, but behind it all lies evil at
the cosmic or spiritual level of creation.

Evil at the spiritual-heavenly level of creation poses a
profound mystery for us. But the Bible describes this cos¬
mic evil in terms of the evil one, Satan, the devil who
stands in opposition to the will and purposes of God at the
cosmic level of the created order. In this prayer-petition,
Jesus gives us the description of the one who decided to
pit his will against the will of God as “the evil one.”

From the point of view of the Bible we will not have
realistically grappled with human evil and earthly wick¬
edness unless we have also wrestled this “will against
God’s will” at the cosmic level of creation. In other words,
the battle against evil involves more than our own indi¬
vidual struggles.

This multidimensional nature of the problem of evil
has been attested to not only in the Bible but in most
great literature and especially in the long history of
folk stories, ancient myths, and fantasy literature. In
these, evil is rarely portrayed as simple or one dimen¬
sional, as anyone familiar with such stories as Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs , The Wizard of Oz,
Grimm's Fairy Tales , The Chronicles of Narnia and
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings will recognize.
In each of these the writers have woven into their sto¬
ries the different kinds and forms of the threats of evil
encountered by their villains and heroes. These stories
enable us to see parallels to the dangers and threats we
face in our own lives.

Among the most successful motion pictures of the last
ten or fifteen years are three adventure movies by George
Lucas — Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return

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of the Jedi — all adventure stories portrayed in a modern,
space-technology motif. Though other story motifs of good
and evil found in Eastern religious thought are present,
nevertheless, the essential story line and the portrayals
of the contest between good and evil within each of these
films are very much in the tradition of the folk sagas of
Europe, Iceland, and ancient Greece.

We find in these classic motion pictures the evil of face¬
less soldiers who only follow orders in blind obedience.
We discover, too, the evil of weakness shown by those
who refuse to take risks and stand up for truth — truth
that is repressed because of their fears. Pictured, too, are
the evils perpetrated by terrorizing thugs and bullies,
self-indulgence, and bureaucratic lust.

More deadly, however, are those forms of spiritual
evil in which we confront wickedness that was once al¬
lied with truth, but like a fallen angel of light has be¬
trayed all that is right. This form of evil seeks the
destruction of what once it held in friendship and loy¬
alty. Spiritual evil is more generic and radical than the
violence of the ruthless marauders or the sexual chaos
of Sodom and Gomorrah.

George Lucas in his movies, like J. R. R. Tolkien in his
books has portrayed for us in fictional terms the large-
scale battle between good and evil. These are exciting
stories because of their element of adventure, but they
are also exciting at another level because they are part of
a larger body of folk stories that point to our human
awareness of the continuing contest between good and
evil. At the same time they lay open the truth of our
consciousness that behind all kinds of human and inter¬
personal harm is the cosmic reality of evil best described
as their moral, personal, spiritual will against the ulti¬
mate good will of God.

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Seventeenth-century Puritan Thomas Watson ex¬
pressed it well in some of his comments on the Lord’s
Prayer, “Satan envies man’s happiness. To see a clod of
dust so near to God, and himself, once a glorious angel,
cast out of heavenly paradise, makes him pursue man¬
kind with inveterate hatred.”

The Victory Is Won

The devil has a measure of power, but not the final
power. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus gives us great good
news: He has intervened on our behalf. God has set a
boundary limiting the full extent of every evil power’s
terror, and we need to recognize that boundary. As we
pray the words of the prayer Jesus gave to the disciples,
that, too, becomes part of the boundary.

Speaking of the devil, the writer of the Book of Reve¬
lation refers to him as “the angel of the bottomless pit;
his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called
Apollyon” (Revelation 9:11). The word Apollyon means
“destroyer.” While Satan calls himself that, it becomes
clear that he does not have the power he claims to have.

Though the evil one has the power to accuse, slander,
and tempt— and we find all these names of the devil in
the Bible — he does not have the power to ultimately de¬
stroy.

In John Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim's Progress , in his
great battle with Apollyon, Pilgrim discovers that be¬
yond all harm that evil can do there is a boundary that
belongs to Jesus Christ, Lord of redemption and final
victor over the evil one. Jesus Christ has the real and
lasting power, and from him we receive the spiritual
weapons that will conquer cosmic evil. Consequently,

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155

from the standpoint of New Testament teaching, it is
extremely important that we not overrate the powers of
spiritual evil.

The power of this brief and crystal-clear petition in the
Lord’s Prayer rests in its ability to set us free from any
fear of the evil one. We need only this prayer sentence to
win out in the practical give-and-take of life over any and
all forms of evil. In fact, it is important that we avoid any
exaggeration of the power of evil.

When we find ourselves guilty of overestimating the
power of evil forces, we must remember that such an
attitude or outlook represents a shrinkage of our confi¬
dence in the faithfulness and authority of Jesus Christ. I
have known good Christian folk who seemed almost re¬
signed to the notion that sin and evil would prevail and
take over in our world. But this is wrong, and giving in to
such an attitude in reality means we surrender our re¬
sponsibility for our decisions and acts.

It is never correct to give in to the idea that “the devil
made me do it.” The devil only tempts; we decide and act.
Therefore we must repent and ask for forgiveness, must
seek God’s help as we ask, and thank God for his good¬
ness and faithfulness.

We are engaged in a larger battle than the simple con¬
test between our own selfishness and the good will of
God. How can we hope to win this cosmic battle? Only
through the help of the One who fully understands each
strategy of the battle. He who made this prayer
possible — its author and our teacher — makes us able to
win, for he has won the battle through his cross and the
empty grave. His victory fulfills this prayer-petition. In
the face of the evil one, we place our confidence in the
truth that Jesus Christ has the upper hand.

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With this truth fixed firmly in our hearts and minds,
we need not become preoccupied with the evil one. In¬
stead, it is God’s perfect will for us to simply pray when
either threats or danger confronts us. He has already
rescued us from the evil one — our task is to trust the
victory.

Kingdom, Power, and Glory

As we near the completion of our examination of the
Lord's Prayer we come to the final sentence, . . For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for
ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13 kjv).

In most instances this sentence is not found in later
translations of the prayer. If included, it appears in ei¬
ther parentheses or brackets. The sentence is not found
in the most ancient manuscripts, therefore many inter¬
preters conclude that early Christians added it in a rev¬
erent attempt to round out the otherwise abrupt ending.

Two Options

I include the sentence because we are familiar with it,
and because it does appear in several early manuscripts.

We'll approach this problem by giving consideration to
two ideas. First, if we omit the final sentence, it means

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our Lord has given us a prayer that is like a door opening
into a larger room. With this brief prayer he has taught
us how to enter into that larger room. Now that we have
entered that room where our Father is, we can bring
ourselves and our needs and our feelings to him. We are
free to “blurt” them out, because we know that he hears
and cares. Entering into this room enables us to enter
into the fellowship of worship, praise, and intercession
that the Lord’s Prayer makes possible. Jesus has taught
us a prayer with which to begin our own prayers, which
move us on in our intimate relationship with God. If we
do not include this line, the prayer stops without an
ending — not even an Amen.

But what if this final sentence does in fact belong in
the prayer, since certain old manuscripts include it?
The second-century document The Didache contains
this final sentence. Professor W. D. Davies, a noted Bi¬
ble scholar, is convinced that this sentence is an essen¬
tial part of Jesus’ prayer and belongs in the text: “It is
antecedently unlikely that Matthew and, for that mat¬
ter, Jesus Himself should finish a prayer without a dox-
ology, expressed or assumed . . . secondly, (according to
Pharisee tradition) every benediction had to be re¬
sponded to with the full doxology . . . 'praised be His
name whose glorious Kingdom is forever and ever.’ nl
As interpreters, the dilemma we must face is the fact
that this final sentence is missing from the most valu¬
able and oldest manuscripts of the New Testament.

Further, if Jesus had given his followers a prayer with¬
out the usual ending, it is quite understandable that
early church scribes might seek to fulfill Old Testament
tradition and first-century Jewish worship practices by
supplying a doxology. In any case, note that this final

Kingdom, Power, and Glory

159

sentence is identical in theme to the benedictions found
in two of David’s prayers. The Chronicles writer says:

Then David blessed the Lord in the presence of all
the assembly; David said: “Blessed are you, O Lord,
the God of our ancestor Israel, forever and ever.
Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the
glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in
the heavens and on earth is yours; yours is the king¬
dom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over
all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in
your hand to make great and to give strength to all.

And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise
your glorious name.”

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

Similar wording is found also in David’s benediction re¬
corded in 1 Chronicles 16:36. The opening sentences of
Jesus’ high priestly prayer, found in chapter 17 of the
Gospel of John, form another interesting parallel to the
doxology that concludes the Lord’s Prayer.

“Thine Is the Kingdom.” Let’s take a closer look
at the doxology ending to the Lord’s Prayer. In this mag¬
nificent shout of praise we find three facts about God’s
character. The first is related to the phrase, “Thine is the
kingdom” (kjv). “Kingdom” was a highly charged word in
the first century. Jesus picked up on the kingdom refer¬
ence in the very first sentence of the Sermon on the
Mount, “ ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven’ ” (Matthew 5:3). The nine beatitudes
that introduce the sermon make it clear that Jesus is
revealing a new and deeper definition of kingdom. Be¬
cause of their confinement within the narrow limitations

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of tribalism and nationalistic aspiration, the disciples of
Jesus would only gradually discover the meaning of
“kingdom” as Jesus used it.

For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of
God was a reference to “kingly reign” — the relationship
between God and his people. The disciples would only
begin to understand the meaning of the kingdom as they
experienced the catastrophic event of Jesus’ death on Cal¬
vary and the glorious victory, three days later, on that
first Easter morning, when Jesus conquered sin and
death through his resurrection. In time they would un¬
derstand that the meaning of the kingdom is defined by
the King himself. The kingdom is where the King is, and
those who follow the King are in the kingdom.

By the time of the first church council held in Jerusa¬
lem, the first-century believers had reached agreement
on the fact that God’s kingdom is universally available to
everyone who has faith — Jews and gentiles — to all who
trust in Jesus Christ. This cataclysmic decision for the
Jewish believers of Jerusalem resulted from Peter’s ex¬
perience with Cornelius and the testimony of Barnabas
and Paul as they reported gentile conversions.

James, the chairperson for that first council, quoted
from the Book of the Twelve — -the Minor Prophets — to
validate the council’s decision. Quoting from the Greek
version of the Prophet Amos (Amos 9:8-12), James
says, “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the
dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will
rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other people
may seek the Lord — even all the Gentiles over whom
my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has
been making these things known from long ago’ ” (Acts
15:16, 17).

This is the kingdom of God for which we praise him — it

Kingdom, Power, and Glory

161

is the kingly reign that belongs to God and becomes the
gift to every believer. To this kingdom and this King we
sing the praise of this last sentence of our Lord’s Prayer.

“And the power.” Here, we offer thanks to God
for his power and his authority. According to the New
Testament teaching, the Christian finds power in the con¬
fidence that God is a God of power. As believers we can¬
not control or make use of power in pursuing our purposes
and goals. The good news of the gospel is found in the
assurance of the authority that resides with the Son of
God. Because Jesus Christ has that authority, it means
that no other force — human evil, death, angels, the
devil — has that power. Rather, all power centers in
Christ and in his reign — all of history is bounded by the
love of Christ.

Having established this eternal truth, we also conclude
that a tremendous authority comes to the believer who is
assured of God’s authority. It means that the believer is
set free from the false powers and from paniclike fear in
the face of threats of wrongful power. We see something
like this in the character Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo’s
Les Miserables.

In this moving story, Jean Valjean has experienced the
tender and strong love of the priest, Father Bienvenue, in
the midst of his darkest hour. The remarkable musical
portrayal of this Victor Hugo classic weaves together into
an impressive musical tapestry the different kinds of
powers that drive men and women. It includes the surg¬
ing force and power of angry people determined to de¬
stroy injustice and the power of narrow and confused
righteousness in the words and actions of Javaier, the
police inspector.

Then we see the power of the underground scavenger-
thieves who live solely for themselves — those who cash in

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on the outcome of the tragedies of better people. But the
greatest power of all is the power that can heal and
forgive — the power that can give life in the place of death.
Jean Valjean experienced this love from Jesus through
the priest. This power of love finally transforms the pow¬
erful song of the angry and fearful men, which concludes
the first act of the musical, into the song of hope that
becomes the final melody of the closing scene.

Jesus has done this very same thing with the Jewish
language of the kingdom. He has transformed the fierce
songs of the kingdom that were so common to the people
in the first century. In the Qumran community, on the
shores of the Dead Sea, archaeological discoveries have
produced parchments containing the harsh, nationalistic
songs of a people protesting outside rule, oppression, and
authority. Jesus transformed the militant kingdom
yearnings of the nationalist zealots into the universal
song of hope for all people who are conquered not by
violence but by love.

This is authentic power: It is worth having, and we
receive it from Jesus Christ once we are assured of his
forgiveness and his victory over death. This is not the
power one person has over another.

We need this power of love most. Unlike all other pow¬
ers, it never corrupts those who receive it. Its grace “buys
our souls for God.”

“And the glory.” In both the Old and New Testa¬
ments glory has to do with the presence of God. Because
of the awareness of “presence” in the word, a sense of
luminosity and spectacle accompanies the biblical por¬
trayals of glory. The dramatic encounter between the
Prophet Isaiah and the Lord vividly shows this. With
color and imagery, the prophet says,

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163

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of
his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in atten¬
dance above him; each had six wings; with two they
covered their faces, and with two they covered their
feet, and with two they flew. And one called to an¬
other and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory ”

Isaiah 6:1-3, italics mine

Matthew captures this same mystery and glory as he
describes the scene on the Mount of Transfiguration, “Six
days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his
brother John and led them up a high mountain, by them¬
selves. And he was transfigured before them , and his face
shown like the sun , and his clothes became dazzling white”
(Matthew 17:1, 2, italics mine).

In the Book of Revelation’s colorful imagery, we catch
a marvelous picture of the glory of God the Father and
the Lamb in the majestic words of the song:

“. . . Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty,
who was and is and is to come.” And whenever the
living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to
the one who is seated on the throne, who lives for¬
ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the
one who is seated on the throne and worship the one
who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns
before the throne, singing, “You are worthy, our
Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power ,
for you created all things, and by your will they
existed and were created.”

Revelation 4:8-11, italics mine

The word “glory” carries within its meanings the sense
of our recognition of ultimate worth. We sing the Gloria

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in Christian worship when we have discovered the wor¬
thiness of God. This is why the Gloria follows great af¬
firmations about God.

Only God deserves a word as large as Glory! And it is
his to share that glory as he chooses with humanity.
When a human being has caught the vision of the disclo¬
sure of the character of God by the Lord himself, then the
word glory becomes appropriate as the best description
he can come up with through the use of the inadequate
human vocabulary.

The word “glory,” as used throughout the Old and New
Testaments, signals to us that God deserves our praise.
When God himself draws us into his presence, as new
men and women we may share in his glory in a reflected
way. Paul’s majestic and affirmative words to the Chris¬
tians at Rome describe this:

We know that all things work together for good for
those who love God, who are called according to his
purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also pre¬
destined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in
order that he might be the firstborn within a large
family. And those whom he predestined he also
called; and those whom he called he also justified;
and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Romans 8:28-30, italics mine

We experience God’s great decision in our favor
through approval of us — what the Apostle Paul refers to
as the “weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). But for us,
glory is a complicated experience, because we experience
its “weight.” But we can accept the fact with confidence
that the glory of Jesus Christ does shine upon us and that
weight of his presence is a gift granted to us just as we
received the gift of his gracious forgiveness.

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165

C. S. Lewis explored the meanings of that “weight of
glory” in a sermon he preached to Oxford students in
1939. Among other things he said,

. . . Either glory means to me fame, or it means lu¬
minosity . . . the desire for fame appears to me as a
competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than
heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become
kind of a living electric light bulb? When I began to
look into this matter I was shocked to find such dif¬
ferent Christians as Milton, Johnson, and Thomas
Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the
sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred
by our fellow creatures — fame with God, approval or
(I might say) “appreciation” by God. And then when
I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scrip¬
tural; nothing can eliminate from the parable in the
divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful
servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been
thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards.

I suddenly remembered that nothing is so obvious in
a child — not in a conceited child, but in a good
child — as its great and undisguised pleasure in be¬
ing praised.2

There is no more vital experience than to know the
King and his sovereign righteousness, knowing his ul¬
timate worthiness and then experiencing his approval.
Can you see now how this final doxology in the Lord’s
Prayer has brought us full circle to the opening four
commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount
Sinai? We have been brought to the great “worship
commandments,” and these point us toward God and his
character. In this magnificent doxology we have the
best protection against idolatry, vanity, polytheism, and

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meaninglessness. When we really know the King — who
he is and his authority and worthiness — we no longer
need the idols of Baal, the Roman city gods, or any of
the false gods of our late twentieth century. The doxol-
ogy that closes out the Lord’s Prayer turns our eyes
upon the Lord himself.

For Ever. Amen. This brings us now to the closing
words, “For ever. Amen” (kjv). Here we have the words of
fulfillment and faithfulness. “For ever” is not used in the
Greek sense of infinity. Rather, it is used in the Hebrew
sense of completion, and this is affirmed to us by its com¬
panion word “Amen” — a word brought directly into the
Greek from Hebrew.

“Amen” in its concrete Hebrew sense and meaning is
defined as “foundation stone” or “pillar,” as, for example,
in 2 Kings 18:16, where it is used to describe the door¬
posts of the Temple. In Isaiah 22:23 the word “Amen” is
translated “peg in a secure place.” And the same word is
used in a double form at the close of Psalm 41:13, where
it is “Amen and Amen.” In this instance it means the
faithfulness of God, followed by the response of our faith.
This is probably the intention of our Lord’s double use of
the word at the opening of many of his speeches. For
example, it is this word Jesus used when he said, “ 'Very
truly [Amen, amen] I tell you . . .’ ” (John 1:51). Over and
over again in the Gospel of John especially we have the
words, “Verily, verily” or “truly, truly.” In each case, the
original is “Amen, amen.” God’s faithfulness for our faith.

In this doxology, as throughout the Lord’s Prayer, we
have the sense of the awesome majesty and holiness of
God, but at the same time we feel the presence of a loving
heavenly Father who cares for us, provides for us, and is

Kingdom, Power, and Glory

167

at all times intimately aware of our feelings and needs.
Indeed, through our prayer we feel the intimacy of friend¬
ship with the One who is described in these words, “And
the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have
seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of
grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Daily Prayer

Christians not only require daily bread, we also need
daily prayer. Saint Augustine explained the reason for
this need when he wrote in his Confessions : “Our hearts
are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Prayer is
a rest in the Lord who is our Friend, because by prayer
we trust and put our weight down upon the faithfulness
of God.

Saint Augustine also understood the dynamic nature
of prayer when he himself prayed, “But thou, Lord, ever
workest, and art ever at rest ... so rest in us as now
thou workest in us.” Prayer is work because in prayer
we think things through with God, and we bring our
real lives into the living presence of the Lord in order to
hear his will and his mandate. That can hardly be a
passive experience!

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Prayer — Between Friends

A Daily Rule

At this point in our prayer pilgrimage let us look at
some of the ways that Christians pray. I believe that the
daily rule for prayer is important, not as the requirement
of a technique or a law, but because every relationship
needs the continuity of communication in order to grow
and deepen. For this reason, regular, daily prayer has
been, and is, my goal.

I like to stand at the front window of our house and
pray for the people and events that are a part of my day.
Before the rest of the family is awake and up, I set apart
this special time with God. When I drive to work at
certain streets and one large traffic circle I sing songs of
praise to God for the day. Among my favorites are,
“Let the First Song I Sing Today Be Praise to You,”
and, “Make Me Like You, Lord, Please Make Me Like
You.” Fm also very fond of “O God, Our Help in Ages
Past,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “Amazing
Grace,” and “Praise the Savior Ye Who Know Him.” In
other words I have found it helpful to have certain habits
of prayer and praise that accompany the ordinary rou¬
tines of my day, including specific places that are a part
of that routine. In this way, traditions become a part of
my personal life journey.

It has also long been a practice in our home to pray at
meal times. Part of our family tradition is to hold hands
around the table as we pray.

At night we pray for a good sleep and for safety for all
of our loved ones and friends. My daughter Anne and I
are both journal keepers. Here we write about the people
and activities in our lives. These become a very impor¬
tant part of our prayers as we remember the people and
events recorded there.

Daily Prayer

171

A Structured Time and Place. I find that a daily
quiet time of prayer and meditation is very important to
many people, and I have attempted to build this into my
own schedule. My father has structured a quiet time into
each morning immediately following his regimen of body
exercises. Other of my friends listen to tapes, meditate,
pray, and even sing during their daily routines of jogging
or walking. Another friend drives the fifty to seventy-five
miles from Berkeley to Sacramento and back almost ev¬
ery day, and he has set aside a part of the trip each day
as his time of reflection and prayer.

However, whenever we do it, each of us needs to estab¬
lish our own routines and traditions that build our rela¬
tionship and friendship with the Lord. C. S. Lewis
commented, “Active habits are strengthened through
repetition.” We need active habits especially when it
comes to the development of our habits of prayer.

Personal but Not Private. Ronald Thompson, a
good friend of mine, commented, “Christian faith is per¬
sonal but it is not private.” How true! Yes, at times we
want to be alone, but as Christians we have built into our
biblical faith a tradition of warm and nourishing fellow¬
ship. Indeed, the Lord has called us into a relationship
with himself, but he also calls us into fellowship with
other people.

In fact, in the Bible’s first description of Christian be¬
lievers Luke wrote in the Book of Acts: “So those who
welcomed his [Peter’s] message were baptized. . . . They
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fel¬
lowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”
(2:41, 42).

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Prayer — Between Friends

I believe that group prayer forms a vital part of the
Christian’s whole prayer experience. The prayer groups I
have belonged to in my own Christian journey have
played a key role in my spiritual formation. As a Chris¬
tian I have always needed brothers and sisters who are
my prayer partners.

I recall so vividly the first prayer group in which I took
part. It was a college group at the First Presbyterian
Church of Berkeley, and we met regularly to pray for one
another and our common lives as students at the Univer¬
sity of California. A fellow student and friend, Larry
Cardwell, still stands out in my memory because of his
strong faith in God. I knew that Larry was fiercely honest
about everything, and when he shared with our group
that he trusted God completely, it carried a lot of weight
with me.

When I entered Princeton Theological Seminary, I
joined a group that became very formative in my life.
University and seminary students met early in the
morning once a week. Whimsically, we called ourselves
“the Original Twelve.” We studied the Bible and prayed
together. From this fellowship group I learned about
the exciting power of the Bible to be relevant to our ev¬
eryday life, if we are willing to be open and receptive to
the text. Second, I discovered the warm and supportive
fellowship that comes when we pray together with fel¬
low Christians, and that fellowship of prayer has con¬
tinued on with lifelong friends that I made in that
group.

Later, during the two summers that I was a seminary
intern at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley I
learned the good discipline of a daily early-morning
group that was led by Dr. Ralph Byron, a layman of the

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173

church. Our group prayed for world needs, for the min¬
istry of missionaries and Christian workers, and for one
another. In this experience of persistent intercession, I
was stretched by my exposure to what Christians in other
worshiping traditions have called the daily office of
prayer.

The prayer-group Experiences I had at Forest Home
Christian Conference Center, in the San Bernardino
Mountains, near Los Angeles, during the time of Dr.
Henrietta Mears, especially encouraged me during the
earliest years of my ministry as a pastor to students.
Miss Mears had the gift of contagious, enthusiastic con¬
fidence in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, be¬
cause she knew the Lord of that gospel so well. I recall
one time when someone asked Miss Mears, who was
then in her senior years, what she would do differently
if she could relive her life. Without a moment of hesi¬
tation, she answered, “I would trust God more.” Hers
were always prayers of trust, in which she realistically
took note of the problems but always kept her eyes on
the Lord.

In these few paragraphs I have shared only a few ex¬
periences and people who have enriched my life because
we prayed together. Dr. Robert Boyd Munger also taught
me to pray; he was not only my senior colleague but my
prayer colleague as well.

The Supportive Power of Shared Prayer

Today I benefit from two regular groups that play a
highly significant role in my present journey as a Chris¬
tian. The first group has met together every Wednesday

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Prayer — Between Friends

morning, for nineteen years. We eat together, share to¬
gether, pray together, and study the Bible together. The
special concern of this group is to pray for one another
as we attempt to fulfill our varied vocational callings.
The other group, comprised of pastors, meets together
monthly. Our goal is to pray for one another and the
ministry and outreach of each church.

Because of the richness of my own experiences and
their dramatic impact on my spiritual journey, I always
encourage Christians to locate a group with which they
can pray and study the Bible. And if there isn’t such a
group available, I ask them to consider starting one.
Nothing substitutes for the supportive help and
strength that we give to one another. The Apostle Paul,
well aware of the power of Christian prayer fellow¬
ship and support, commented to the Christians at the
church in Philippi, “For I know that through your
prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this
will turn out for my deliverance” (Philippians 1:19).
The Greek word translated “help” in this verse is epi-
choragia. From the root of this word we get our English
words chorus , chorale , and choreography. Here the
Apostle tells us that God is the master choreographer of
our lives and our prayers, even of our relational con¬
nections and meetings. We decide to pray, and in our
freedom we decide what to do in our human encounters.
But God choreographs our prayer and our lives to the
good benefit of the world around us. This is encouraging
news as we look back and look forward toward the fu¬
ture.

We pray and we pray together because the Lord has
invited us into the place of agreement, where he meets
us, and we call our experience of that place prayer — the
prayer between friends. We thought it was our idea to

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175

pray — and in reality it was — the mystery of it all is that
when we are in that place of agreement called prayer, we
discover Someone waiting there, with a fire going and
even food to eat (John 21:12, 13).

Between Friends

Several years ago I was invited to be the retreat
speaker at an Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship confer¬
ence at a camp in the jungle-covered mountains near the
city of Cebu in the south-central Philippines. Several of
the leaders and I arrived from Manila, at an agreed-upon
meeting place, so we could travel together up to the camp.
The camp was located high in the mountains, above a
deep, tropical, river valley.

At a small airport, an InterVarsity student leader, who
knew the terrain well, met us. He had written out an
elaborate set of directions and had drawn a map to guide
us up through the mountains to the campsite. He showed
us the four-wheel-drive truck and supplemented his writ¬
ten directions and the map with some added warnings. It
was a hazardous four-hour trip, over a rough route; he
warned us to be careful crossing the river and told us
where we should go if the afternoon rains had caused the

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Prayer — Between Friends

river to swell so we couldn't cross at the prescribed place.
Finally he warned us to watch the edges of the cliffs
carefully, in case of mud slides or a possible washout.

Apparently, the looks on our faces betrayed the terror
we felt down inside. After a few minutes of such descrip¬
tive instructions, he stopped and looked from one of us to
another. Then came the first good news we’d heard since
we arrived, “Oh, heck, I’ll go with you guys, and I’ll
drive.”

In that happy moment, which made the humid Philip¬
pine afternoon bearable, I learned a very important life
principle: A guide alongside is infinitely better than a
map and written instructions. And the great good news
for us, in our Christian journey, is that Jesus Christ is
the Guide who has joined us. He guides us, not because
we have hired him or because he feels sorry for us, but
because he is our Friend. We may find it difficult to un¬
derstand why he wants to be our Friend and Companion,
but over and over again in the Gospels we have the record
that his words and actions prove his friendship.

What Is This Friendship?

In Jesus’ Thursday-evening discourse during Passion
Week, one paragraph in particular gives us a graphic
affirmation and explanation of God’s friendship with us:

“This is my commandment, that you love one an¬
other as I have loved you. No one has greater love
than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You
are my friends if you do what I command you . I do
not call you servants any longer, because the ser¬
vant does not know what the master is doing; hut I
have called you friends, because I have made known

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179

to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I ap¬
pointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last,
so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in
my name. I am giving you these commands so that
you may love one another.”

John 15:12-17, italics mine

Two important questions surface here: What did it
mean to the disciples to be friends of the Lord at that
place and time during Holy Week? What does it mean for
us today?

The First Test. In this brief New Testament para¬
graph Jesus offers four tests of the friendship he is
describing — two tests from his side and two from our side.
From Jesus’ side comes the first test: We know Christ’s
friendship for us because of what he has done for us: “ ‘No
one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for
one’s friends.’ ”

The reasoning behind this test of friendship is that the
depth and extent of self-giving love is the most funda¬
mental and timeless criterion of friendships. We instinc¬
tively employ this criterion when we are in trouble and
need help — whom can I call on the phone at one in the
morning, when my car breaks down?

We all have acquaintances whom we enjoy meeting at
church or at work or on the golf course or at a civic club.
But we wouldn’t ask a favor from most of these people,
because we instinctively realize there exists an unwrit¬
ten but real limitation to the degree of commitment that
can be expected from these relationships. After all, they
are acquaintances, not friends.

All our relationships carry different weights. We are
indeed fortunate if a few people in our lives would give us

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Prayer — Between Friends

the shirts off their backs. Psychologist Jess Lair words it
this way, “How many close friends can you have? Two,
three, four? One of my definitions of a close friend is a
guy who is around when you need him. And it isn’t be¬
cause you called him up, he is around because he is your
friend.”1

Jesus underscored his friendship for his disciples by
saying that he would give his life for them, because they
were his friends. A little later he assured them, “ *. . .
And remember, I am with you always . . .’ ” (Matthew
28:20). That’s the kind of Friend Jesus is. The good news
for us is that he includes those of us who live twenty
centuries later in that promise of friendship. The promise
is definite, personal, and historical, and it became an
event on Mount Calvary.

The Second Test. The second test on Jesus’ side of
this friendship equation is a more subtle expansion of the
first. Jesus wants the disciples to understand his friend¬
ship not only in sacrificial and heroic terms but in the
interpersonal framework of communication. Jesus tells
his disciples that he has taken them into his confidence
in a way only experienced among close and good friends,
“ . . I have made known to you everything . . .’ ” (John

15:15), and this proves the friendship.

Have you had a moment at a bus station or on a com¬
muter train platform when out of the corner of your eye
you caught sight of a familiar face? At such times a di¬
lemma confronts me. I had counted on the next thirty
minutes or so on that train or bus to study my notes for
an upcoming lecture. If I acknowledge seeing this
“friend,” it could result in our sitting together, and I
would lose out on my precious time of study.

Between Friends

181

Now, such an occasion reveals just how much the per¬
son I have spotted means to me. If that person is a good
friend, I will walk across the platform and suggest we
ride together and visit. The previously planned study
time seems less important, under the circumstances. On
the other hand, if the person I’ve caught sight of is an
especially trusted friend who knows me well, I would feel
free to walk up to him and say something like this: “It’s
great to see you, Bob. Let’s sit together, but I can’t talk or
visit, because I have to study my notes for a lecture I’m to
give later this morning.” You can see the difference in
the quality of each friendship.

Another illustration of this distinction surfaces once a
year at Christmastime, when we receive the usual run of
Christmas letters. If a letter is from a valued friend but
someone I haven’t been intimately close to, I may set it
aside to read at my leisure. On the other hand, if a letter
arrives from someone I feel especially close to, I’ll set
everything else aside and pour over the letter immedi¬
ately, because I’m anxious to know all that has happened
to this special friend.

Jesus wanted his disciples and us to know that we are
this kind of special friend. He wants to talk to us and give
us the good news about his heavenly Father. An intimate
quality about the friendship Jesus offers us makes our
relationship warm and intensely personal.

The Third Test. Now we come to the two tests of
friendship from our side of the relationship. Jesus said,
“ ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you ”
(John 15:14, italics mine). When I first pondered those
words, I felt a strong tinge of disappointment, because I
thought Jesus had spoken what amounted to an omnibus
requirement of obedience to all of his commands. I real-

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Prayer — Between Friends

ized that obedience was certainly a part of my disciple-
ship responsibilities, but I felt disappointed that he would
insert the demand for obedience in a statement about
friendship.

However as I reflected more closely on Jesus’ words I
saw that here he focuses our attention not on all the rules
of discipleship but on the one great commandment with
which he begins and ends his statement, “This is my
commandment, that you love one another ...” and “I am
giving you these commands so that you may love one
another” (John 15:12, 17). When I came to terms with
this very simple and clear contextual sense, in which one
single command of Jesus is affirmed, I saw its good and
exciting connection to my friendship with him. I realized
Jesus asked us to share his friendship with other people.

To illustrate: Imagine that you are on a walking tour of
a grand estate, possibly in England. Your tour guide,
who also happens to be a friend of the owner, shows you
through the mansion room by room. Everything you see
arouses your admiration — the gardens, the swimming
pool, the passageways, the dining hall, and the vaulted
great hall. While looking around the great hall, you com¬
ment to your guide, “What a beautiful vase on that table
over there.”

The guide turns and asks, “Do you really like that
vase?” “Yes, I think that is the most beautiful vase I have
ever seen,” you reply. With that, the guide says, “Then it
is yours. I know the owner of this house very well, and
my friend would want you to have the vase. It’s yours.”

This is exactly the idea that Jesus is getting across to
his disciples. In effect, he says, “You will indeed prove
that you are my friend if you give away the valued pos¬
sessions of my estate, and my love is the most valuable of

Between Friends

183

all. When you give my love to others, you have proved
our friendship.”

In his interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer Martin
Luther had a telling comment on the petition in which
Jesus teaches us to ask forgiveness for our trespasses and
then says that we are to forgive those who trespass
against us. Luther observed that the second part of the
petition is given to us because with it the Lord lets us see
that we will experience forgiveness in a definite and prac¬
tical way — we are assured of our forgiveness when we are
able to forgive others who have acted against us.

When we share Christ’s love, we prove inwardly and
outwardly that we ourselves are experiencing that love,
and in the sharing we are assured that we are friends of
Jesus Christ. Think of it! We prove Christ’s extravagant
friendship when we extravagantly give away Christ’s
best treasures as if there was an endless supply!

The Fourth Test. The final test of our friendship
is as simple as it is direct, “ *. . . the Father will give you
whatever you ask him in my name’ ” (John 15:16, italics
mine). This test of friendship on our side is a carbon copy
of the second test on Jesus’ side of the equation. Jesus
takes us into his confidence because he considers us his
friends, and now we are invited to do the same toward
him. We are encouraged to take God into our confidence,
and when we do, we have the right to use the name of
Jesus according to our need. Here Jesus invites us to pray
to the Father in his name, without embarrassment or
hesitation. In so doing we prove that Jesus is both our
Friend and our Lord.

In this remarkable statement the Lord invites us to
pray for the concerns on our hearts with the same open¬
ness and lack of embarrassment that go with the requests

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Prayer — Between Friends

and questions that we ask of a really good friend. We can
do this at any time of the day or night — even at one in the
morning!

Prayer becomes one more test of the durable reality of
our friendship — it is the miraculously free and privileged
language between friends. As believers in Jesus Christ,
when we speak of prayer, we describe a friendship that
has taken the whole world by surprise. It is friendship
with the One who not only willingly gave us a set of
directions and a map, but he decided to come along with
us on our journey of life.

And Finally . . .

If we want to come to a clear understanding of what
God is like, we should ask ourselves one simple question:
“What does prayer mean to me?”

Our response to this question goes to the very heart of
what we understand God to be like. Dr. George Hendry,
the Charles Hodge Professor Theology at Princeton Theo¬
logical Seminary, first helped me to discover this very
simple doorway into the vast territory of the theology of
God. He asked this question of all the young theologians
at the seminary, because he knew that when we pray — if
we do — we reveal what we believe about God in a more
accurate way than if we just talk about God. Therefore
this is as much a book about what we believe about God
as it is about why and how we pray to God.

If God seems an impersonal force to us, then our
prayers reveal that we expect an impersonal nonlistener.
On the other hand, if we understand God as the One who

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Prayer — Between Friends

has spoken and made himself known in Jesus Christ, our
prayers will reflect a tenaciously personal theology in the
way we expect a living God of love to hear us.

Prayer is not one of several possible religious acts or
disciplines that devout people might become good at or
well trained to do. Rather, prayer is our part in and our
experience of the very heart of the whole mystery of be¬
ing and of the mystery of God. Prayer is our side of the
friendship we experience in our relationship with Al¬
mighty God.

In the beginning of this journey into the meanings of
prayer, I told the story of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse
and his crisp sentence, “Our prayers don’t change God
but they do change us.” As you can see, I have disagreed
with the first part of his statement, but the second part of
his sentence is wonderfully true.

Prayer does change history as we become partners of
God’s will — at the same time, prayer changes us. By
prayer we make our complete selves open to God so that
we welcome his grace and righteousness into our daily
lives. This happens when we dare to pray, and somehow
the mystery of prayer takes on ethical and behavioral
implications.

It seems to me that somehow or other, people are more
intellectually thoughtful and ethically active after pray¬
ing. Prayer affects and even changes our attitudes and
our way of life. That great English writer of our century
Malcolm Muggeridge discovered this when he visited the
Sisters of Charity Mission to the dying, in Calcutta, In¬
dia. At first blush Muggeridge thought these sisters and
their tiny Albanian leader, Mother Teresa, spent alto¬
gether too much time in their various offices of prayer.
But then he discovered that these women of prayer had
far more energy and skill and grace than they could have

And Finally . . .

187

mustered through their human resources. These mission¬
ary sisters profoundly influenced Muggeridge as he beau¬
tifully told their story in his moving book Something
Beautiful for God.

Yes, prayer changes us, and not because we are good at
it, but because of the One to whom we open our hearts
and minds when we pray. In prayer we discover that God
is indeed alive and present through his Son, Jesus Christ,
just as was announced by the young man in a white robe
at Jesus’ empty tomb, “ . . you are looking for Jesus of

Nazareth, who was crucified. He had been raised: he is
not here . . / ” (Mark 16:6, italics mine).

This living Lord invites us to pray, and every time we
do we confess our faith in the living God, every time we
pray, we risk having our lives changed. For me, the best
discovery of all is that the One who meets me in prayer is
my Friend, as he has been from the beginning.

In our journey together, we have seen that prayer be¬
gan very early in the Bible. Hardly a psalm, an Old Tes¬
tament story, or a prophetic challenge does not in some
way teach us about prayer. We saw in the Job story that
he was a good teacher as he boldly dared to lay his con¬
cerns and arguments before God himself. But Job, the
amateur, embarrassed his religious counselor-friends,
just as all genuine prayer is a religious embarrassment,
because friendship needs no religious skill or rehearsed
ritual — and prayer is the language of friendship. As
we’ve all experienced, turbulence and pain exist in
friendship just as joy and quietness do. But the language
of that relationship, both in times of upheaval and in
times of quietness, is prayer.

Finally, we confront the eternal truth that Jesus is the
best teacher of prayer, because he invites us to enter his
Father’s house without fear, yet with profound respect

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Prayer — Between Friends

and thankfulness. As we pray, we acknowledge this grat¬
itude in the closing words, “In Jesus' name.” Here is the
grand secret of all time. And that secret is the Person in
whose name we pray — Jesus Christ the Lord!

First-century Roman cynic and critic of Christianity
Celsus was really right when he made his brilliant
charge against the early Christians: “Christians have the
absurd idea that God takes an interest in man.”

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever. Amen.” Prayer — the language of our
friendship with God — proves Celsus was right!

Source Notes

Chapter 1: Do I Dare Disturb God?

1. T. S. Eliot, “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” The Literature
of England, George K. Anderson and William E. Buckler,
eds., 5th ed., Vol. 2 (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman & Co.,
1968), 1732.

Chapter 3: The Language of Relationship

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers From Prison (New
York: Macmillan, 1972), 157.

Chapter 6: Who Is There When We Pray?

1. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan,
1967), 37.

Chapter 7: The Crisis of Faith

1. Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary
(London: Inter- Varsity Press, 1976).

190

Source Notes

2. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper &
Row, Publishers, 1959), 15.

Chapter 8: Surprised by Hope

1. Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People
(New York: Schocken Books, 1987).

2. Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary
(London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976).

Chapter 12: Forgiveness

1. C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew (New York: Macmillan,
1986), 141.

Chapter 14: Kingdom, Power, and Glory

1. W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cam¬
bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), 1.

2. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Co., 1949), 8.

Chapter 16: Between Friends

1. Jess Lair, I Ain't Well but I Sure Am Better (Garden City,
N. Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1975), 37.

Princeton Theological Seminary Library

012 01

505 2782

CPS1A information can be obtained at www.ICGtesting com
Printed in the USA
BVOW04sl3571903 14

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781

"Prayer is our side of the friendship we experience in
our relationship with Almighty God.”

In Prayer Between Friends , Earl Palmer guides you into a deep,
abiding relationship with God. He digs into the Bible to offer
insights into the personality, practices, and purposes of prayer.
Drawing upon the examples set by our Lord Jesus Christ, David,
and Job, among other biblical personalities, the author teaches
important lessons, including:

• Establishing our faith on the reality of Cod’s presence rather
than on our feelings

• Clinging to Gods promise in the midst of confusion or suffering

• Trusting God enough to be honest with him

• Recognizing the privileges of praying in Jesus' name

• Relying on God for daily sustenance

• Confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness

• Tackling temptati on

• Praying with other believers

“Prayer is a rest in the Lord who is our Friend, because by prayer
we trust and put our weight down upon the faithfulness of God.'1

Earl F. Palmer is a graduate of the University of California at
Berkeley and Princeton Theological Seminary. Since 1991 he has
been pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Wash¬
ington. His other books include The Book That John Wrote, Salva¬
tion by Surprise: Studies in the Book of Romans, and Love Has Its
Reasons: An Inquiry into New Testament Love.

st\P

Regent College Publishing

5800 University Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 2E4
www. regent-books tore . corn

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